“No one answered. You could hear the light buzzing over us. I love that sound. It means school isn't working, that the teachers are losing the battle.”

“I don't mind him not talking so much, because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn't a radio playing; the same way you can hear those blackbirds flying when they're not in the sky”

“And then all of a sudden I realized how little time we have. Like on the earth, I mean. And when I say we, I mean everyone. It was a profound realization, and I suddenly had to share this fact with Mary. I know that sounds insane because of how it was already after midnight and all the other crazy things that had happened that day, but it was one of the most important feelings I’ve ever had – my chest was swelling and everything. It felt like there were only so many hours left on the earth – that’s the hardest part about being alive.”

“I sat there for a moment and thought about my mom. It was her groans of pain that would get me the most. Sometimes they didn’t even sound human. Sometimes she sounded like a cow, and for some weird reason, that made me think about hamburgers and I suddenly realized how starved I was.”

“It was like losing an important weight-bearing bone, and I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to walk the streets without it. ”

“I have to admit, for a second it was sort of turning me on, because I kept imagining Georgia in a very positive light. She was donning designer swimwear with fringe or whatever and she was lying on her stomach with the bikini-top straps untied. I was lathering her up with sun block and my hands were getting into all the cracks and crevices. The image got me pretty excited, and before I knew it, I had an erection. At first I thought it would go away, but it kept getting worse, like harder in that painful way. So that’s when I did something a little weird – I started barking at it. Like a Great Dane or a pit bull or whatever. I literally barked at my erection! And it worked, I’m not kidding.”

“Once I looked over at Welton and he was wiping his nose. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or on nasal spray.”