“You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few brief minutes and then the wind blows away your footprints”

“Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends.”

“Just being alive should make you late for everything. In case you've never noticed, the dead are always on time.”

“We don't always come out unbreakable the first time. So we are broken and rebuilt several times, until there is no question that we can stand on our own”

“The creatures came up the stairs a few at a time, pausing to sit up and sniff the air. Their eyes glinted in the darkness.They were a foot long. They were covered in moth-eaten grey fur and they had enormous fangs and big bushy tails, and there were maybe twenty of them, chittering from all around.Vampire crack squirrels, thought James, and wished he hadn't.”

“Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.”

“She can never tell him what she started to say: that we come to love those who save us. For although Anna does believe this is true, the word that stuck in her throat was not save but shame.”