Han Nolan

“Jason you can't control the universe and everything that happens in it, but you can control your reaction to it. You can control you, and how you choose to live each day.”

“I stepped back and looked at all the people as they continued to weave in and out, around and around, faster and faster until they were one blur, until they were One. And then I knew what Bubbe meant. Here, was God.”

“If you love someone, you stand by him, forever, no matter what.”

“...and I was afraid because I knew I had outgrown my past before I could see a path to my future.”

“For the first time in my life, I felt a gentleness, a softness in the unfolding of each day.”

“Anyway, I'm afraid to ask about Reed, where he is, because I'm afraid I can't handle the answer. The way people come and go in your life, where they're present and alive one minute, and missing or dead the next, is an idea that's too big for me to grasp. Life just seems way too fragile all of a sudden, and everybody seems to take it so lightly, as if they think we're all made like army tanks, big and strong and able to roll over anything in our way. And it's not just our bodies that are fragile; our minds are even more so. I don't know what fine membrane separates sanity from insanity, but after watching my dad slip-sliding around on the border between the two all my life, I know how easy it is to cross, and this scares me. This scares me to death. I've just been wondering, what if I had had the switchblade in my hand? What if Reed had dared me and I was the one with the switchblade? Maybe I would have used it. Then I'd be the one missing. It could have been me. I could have been Reed. Reed is me and I am Reed is Dad is Reed is me.”

“If only his mind were as easy to fix as his body.”

“I glance at the exit across the room. I want out. The bird in my chest is crashing up against its cage. I can feel the heavy thump, thump, thump of its feverish body inside and I open my mouth, not to speak, but to let the bird out so I can breathe.”

“Honestly, I'm just so fed up with you. I'm at my wits' end.'Since my mother is always at her wits' end, I'm surprised she had any wits left.”

“And she didn't once say anything about this being a sin. It used to be I got the word sin slapped in my face every time I did something wrong, but come on, when you live in a sin-free family with sin-free parents and a sin-free sister, well, you can't help but sin a little extra on their behalf.”

“When God's moving his hands through your life, you had better sit up and take notice”

“There's always light after the dark. You have to go through that dark place to get to it, but it's there, waiting for you. It's like riding on a train through a dark tunnel. If you get so scared you jump off in the middle of the ride, then you're there, in the tunnel, stuck in the dark. You have to ride the train all the way to the end of the ride.”

“...I thought it was safer and easier to be one my own. But I don't think I was to be invisible anymore because-because it's lonely, and I don't want to be lonely. I don't want to be alone.”

“We sit huddled together for a few minutes, just being there with one another, and it feels dangerous to me that nobody is saying anything.”

“Our survival depends on not just what we can get in life but also what we can give”