“His wide mouth falls into amused lines. “Everything dies. There’s no way to stop that tide. In the end, all we have is the pleasure we take from life. For my people, it’s not long. I can spend my time crying or I can live . I can seek wonder. Haven’t you ever noticed that people tend to find what they’re looking for, my friend?”

“See, Brutus, for me, it’s not good enough to just guess as to whether there’s a heaven or how to get there. I’m not going to take Julian’s word for it, or Aaron’s word for it, or anyone else’s word for it. I’m going to find out for myself whether I believe there’s a heaven or not, and then I’m going to spend the rest of my life doing everything I possibly can to get there. We don’t get that long on earth, and heaven is forever, so if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, even if it takes my entire life, then it’s worth it,” Elena said.”

“I’m in my classroom and I’m looking at this girl, but all I can see is my dad on the ground, in front of The Wall, telling the truth, finally—his knees drawn and his chest heaving—and when people pass by they look the other way, except for this one lady who stops to give my dad a hug. She gets down on her knees to reach him, and now she’s crying with a stranger, and without asking I know it’s because she’s lost something, too, and I wonder if in comforting my dad she thinks she can find it again. Probably not. It doesn’t work that way.”

“But now, alone in my house, I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless him, and I find myself wondering why--out of all the people in all the world I could have ever loved--I had to fall in love with someone who was taken away from me.”

“I am a writer.I have been a writer my whole life. Words are the only things I have ever believed in. These words… They are a part of me. And they always will be. You can take away everything I own. You can take away my money, my friends and family and strangers I have met once. You can take away my love, my hate, my happiness and sorrow. You can take away my memories, my past and present and future. You can take away my life. You can take away everything.But you can never take away these words. You can never take away the fact that I am a writer.”

“Beware of the deadly donky,falling from the sky'you can choose the way you live,my friend, but not the way you die.”