“We didn't say good bye. But we knew it would be the end if we were apart. There was no reason to call or write letters. As it would have been meaningless, if we couldn't hold each other tight.”

“Bye-bye, I thought, almost sure that I'd never see her again. But if I did - if we ran into each other someday - I knew we would smile and say polite things like How are you? and Give my regards to your parents, and we would secretly remember that we used to mean something to each other. And even if that never happened, if we never spoke again, I was grateful we'd have tonight.”

“If it wasn't for good," my mother says, "we human beings would have been wiped out a long time ago. Either the monsters would have gotten us or we would have killed each other off with greed and jealousy and anger. So we have to believe in good. We have to look for the good in ourselves.”

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

“Before he finally hops on his borad, he hugs me good-bye and we hold on to each other so tightly under the sad, starless sky that for a moment I feel as if our heartbreak were one instead of two.”

“What? Did we end up hating each other? Did we end up the way we thought we always knew would? Did I end up wearing khakis because of that fucking ad?”