“She closed her eyes. "I didn't know that. i didn't know anything. It scares me the things I told myself. But I would have told myself almost anything, because I wanted to believe him.""Why?""Because I wanted to be with you.”

“I hated motorcycles. I said to my mother, 'I'll never get a motorcycle.' And she said, 'You never know what you'll want when you are older.'After that, the thing that scared me was not so much the motorcycle itself, but that I could turn into a person who would want one. I was scared of the idea that I could become an entirely different person, a stranger to myself.”

“Riley was quiet for a minute. She gathered her blanket all around her. "Paul always loved you, Alice. He knows I know that. I know he loves me, too. But it's different."Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out at first. "He loved me once. But I think that part is over," she said slowly."No, it's not. It hasn't even begun." Riley took Alice's bare foot in her hand and squeezed it. "I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first."”

“She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time”

“I love her. I need her. I gave away everything I had for her. I just wanted her to know me.”

“I'm writing this down, because it is going to be hard for me to say it. Because this is probably our last time just us. See, I can write that down, but I don't think I can say it. I'm not doing this to say goodbye, though I know that has to be part of it. I'm doing it to thank you for all we have had and done and been for one another, to say I love you for making this life of mine what it is. Leaving you is the hardest thing I have to do. But the thing is, the best parts of me are in you, all three of you. You are who I am, and what I cherish in myself stays on in you.”

“Every life I start with her, my original sin. I know myself through her.”