Victoria Schwab

“Ben is ten and he’s dead. But he’s not gone. Not for me.”

“M. That’s what I call her, this normal, nonexistent me. It’s not that I’ve never done those things, kissed or danced or just “hung out.” I have. But it was put-on, a character, a lie. I am so good at it—lying—but I can’t lie to myself. I can pretend to be M; I can wear her like a mask. But I can’t be her. I’ll never be her.”

“Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy.”

“It’s not that Mom didn’t keep anything, it’s that she kept the wrong things. We leave memories on objects we love and cherish, things we use and wear down.”

“If Mom was feeling ambitious, she scribbled a small list of items beneath the word, but seeing as her handwriting is virtually illegible, we won’t know what’s in each box until we actually open it. Like Christmas. Except we already own everything.”

“The silliest things shatter you. A T-shirt discovered behind the washing machine. A toy that rolled under a cabinet in the garage, forgotten until someone drops something and goes to fetch it, and suddenly they’re on the concrete floor sobbing into a dusty baseball mitt.”

“Don't you see, Owen?""See what?""The day's over.”

“What if I mess up?""Oh, you will. You'll mess up, you'll make mistakes, you'll break things. Some you'll be able to piece together, and others you'll lose. That's all a given. But there's only one thing you have to do for me.""What's that?""Stay alive long enough to mess up again.”

“I am broken the way most writers are, stories leaking through the cracks.”

“Properly buried.""Properly kept.""That is the way with witches.""And with all things.”

“Magda looks at me as if I've gone mad. Or I've grown up. It's kind of the same thing.”

“He fought the men and he slayed the monsters and he bested the gods, and at last the hero, having conquered all, earned the thing that he wanted most. To go home.”

“Because the only way to truly record a person is not in words, not in still frames, but in bone and skin and memory.”

“I can see him juggling the words inside his head. Fumbling. I tried to juggle once, with three apples I'd found in the pantry. But I just ended up bruising them all so badly my mother had to make apple bread. The whole time I was trying, I kept getting lost in the movements. I couldn't concentrate on all of them at once.I wish Cole would give me an apple. And then he looks at me, and there's that same sad, almost smile, like he's decided to pass me one, but he knows I can't juggle either. Like there's no reason for both of us to bruise things any more than needed.I hold out my hand. "Let me help.”

“Lying is easy. But it's lonely.""What do you mean?""When you lie to everyone about everything, what's left? What's true?""Nothing," I say."Exactly.”

“His gaze settles on the discarded book. He leans, reaching until his fingertips graze Dante's Inferno, still on its bed of folded sheets. "What have we here?" he asks."Required reading," I say."It's a shame they do that," he says, thumbing through the pages. "Requirement ruins even the best of books.”

“You're trying to block out every bit of noise. But people are made of noise, Mac. The world is full of noise. And finding quiet isn't about pushing everything out. It's just about pulling yourself in.”

“Free caffeine and sugar, a recipe for making friends.”

“We protect the past. And the way I see it, that means we need to understand it.”

“I suppose it doesn't matter how they get out. All that matters is they do. And when they do, they must be found. They must go back.”

“Mom may be able to power a city, but Dad barely stays lit.”

“You really are like him, your father.""I can't tell whether you think that's good or bad.""What does it matter? It's simply true.”

“And whatever lie he would have given, it died on his lips as they met hers.”

“The wind took hold of whatever I felt, and ran away with it.”

“Her bare feet land with light thuds like rain on stones.”

“Fear is strange thing. It has the power to make people close their eyes, turn away. Nothibg good grows out of fear.”

“Maybe one day the words will pour out like so many others, easy and smooth and on their own. Right now they take pieces of me with them.”

“There's a difference between fear and paralysis. And I've learned that I don't have to "grow up" to be open to opportunity, to be willing to step through doors without being pushed. I just have to be brave. I just have to be slightly braver than I am scared.”

“I feel connected to you, and I couldn't bear the thought of that being severed. Lost.”