“...he thought of dying as a kind of adventure, something new that he hadn't yet experienced. Like an unusual vacation trip.”

“He realized with a start that something was about to begin. It might be something dull and uninspiring, something he had experienced countless times before, something that wouldn't make a lick of difference when he died. But it was always good to have something about to begin.”

“With an utterly foreign sense of desperation, he did something that he’d never, in all his thirty-three years, thought he would do. He tripped her.”

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”

“He knew why he wanted to kiss her. Because she was beautiful. And before that, because she was kind. And before that, because she was smart and funny. Because she was exactly the right kind of smart and funny. Because he could imagine taking a long trip with her without ever getting bored. Because whenever he saw something new and interesting, or new and ridiculous, he always wondered what she'd have to say about it--how many stars she'd give it and why.”

“As Will stood watching Pen, just before he turned away, his initial astonishment shifted into something quieter. Soon, she will see me; we’ll sit someplace and talk, he thought. He felt like a kid who falls asleep on a long car trip, wakes up, and looks out the window to find that he’s in a new place, or home, and that it’s morning.”