"My thoughts, I think, will soon be sound.My mind, I hope, will soon be found."

"His smile is laced with dynamite."

"It sounds crazy, to think that I cared so much without ever talking to you."

"I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe."

"Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can't help but try to collect the change and hope it's enough to pay for our mistakes."

"I'm beginning to think of hope as a dangerous, terrifying thing."

"You think that because I am unwanted, because I am neglected and-and discarded-" My voice inches higher with every word, the unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming through my lungs. "You think I don't have a heart? You think I don't feel? You think that because I can inflict pain, that I should? You're just like everyone else. You think I'm a monster just like everyone else. You don't understand me at all."

"A tired starving dog so thin and frail it looks like it could be knocked over by the wind. But it's staring at me. Unafraid. Mouth opened. Tongue lolling. I want to laugh out loud. I glanced around quickly before scooping the dog into my arms. I don't need to give my father anymore reasons to castrate me, and I don't trust my soldiers not to report something like this. That I would play with the dog."

"She could see all of Ferenwood from here: the rolling hills, the endless explosion of color cascading down and across the lush landscape. Reds and blues: Maroon and ceruleans. Yellow and tangerine and violet and aquamarine. Every hue held a flavor, a heartbeat, a life. She took a deep breath and drew it all in."

"There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world," he says softly."

"The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them."

"I touch the tip of my finger to his lips. "There are secrets in here," I say. "I want them out."He tries to bite my finger.I steal it back."

"I lived in a really dark place. I wasn't safe in my own mind. I woke up every morning hoping to die and then spent the rest of the day wondering if maybe I was already dead because I couldn't even tell the difference."

"I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe."

"I think wow, I imagine this is what it's like to have friends."

"Please," he says. "I'm begging you to stop."I still. "I can't stomach your pain," he says. "I can feel it so strongly and it's making me crazy- please," he says to me. "Don't be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. You've done nothing wrong." "I'm sorry-""Don't be sorry, either," he says. "God, the only reason I'm not going to kill Kent for this is because I know it would only upset you more."

"I'm wearing dead cotton on my limbs and a blush of roses on my face."

"Of course I remember you." My voice is a strangled whisper. I squeeze my eyes shut. "You were the only one who ever looked at me like a human being."

"And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing and not breathing and hearts beating between us and he's so close, he's so close and I can't feel my legs anymore. I can't feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere, filling everything and he whispers"Please."He says, "Please don't shoot me for this."

"I have to get out of this room as soon as possible, or my own thoughts will wage war against me."

"Kenji has a hand pressed to his mouth, desperately trying to suppress a smile. He's shaking his head, holding up a hand in apology. And then he breaks, laughing out loud, snorting as he tries to muffle the sound. "I'm sorry, he says, pressing his lips together, shaking his head again. "This is not a funny moment. It's not. I'm not laughing."

"His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever. Because this.This is everything."

"I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction."

"She'd decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong and she would be weak, and both would be okay."

"Alice jumped from flagstone to flagstone, her face caught in the rainlight glow, her hand grasping for a touch of gold. The towns excitement was contagious, and the air was so thick with promise Alice could almost bite into it."

"I remember it so well. Dying. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I couldn't scream because my lungs were torn apart or full of blood. I don't know. I just had to lie there, trying to breathe, hoping to drop dead as quickly as possible. And the whole time, the whole time I kept thinking about how I'd spent my entire life being a coward, and how it got me nowhere. And I knew that if I had the chance to do it all again, I'd do it differently. I promised myself I'd finally stop being afraid."

"All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart."

"Alice couldn't explain why, exactly, but she knew now that things had changed between them. Oliver had become her friend in an absolute, uncomplicated way. She was done fighting him, and he was done lying to her."