“He would say, "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore, when you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes, because I will have to go away some day, far away..." And in that instant I could feel myself with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death.”

“Pain lanced through his neck. He gasped and his eyes flew open; Simon was sitting up on him, staring down with wide eyes, his hand across his own mouth. Simon's wounds were gone, though fresh blood stained the front of his shirt. Jace could feel the pain of his bruised shoulders again, the slash across his wrist, his punctured throat. He could no longer hear his heart beating, but he knew it was slamming away inside his chest. Simon took his hand away from his mouth. The fangs were gone. "I could have killed you," he said. There was a sort of pleading in his voice. "I would have let you," said Jace.”

“Surprisingly, fainting sounded like a really good idea. If I fainted, I'd be unconscious, so I wouldn't have to see the impossible anymore, nor would I have to feel so dizzy and sick. Than maybe when I woke up, all of this would go away and I'd find it was all just a bad dream. The mist started to turn dark around the edges.....For the record: fainting sucks.”

“If you could have looked into my heart then when I want to laugh, if you could have done so when the laugh arrived, if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him, for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time, maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.”

“Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death — this infantile fixation of mine — was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry — with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please.”

“I’m serious,” I say. “I don’t want to lose him.”“Then maybe you should go away for a little bit. After all, absence makes the heart grow horny, right?”“That’s not exactly how the saying goes.”“But it should, because you know it’s true. If you go away for a couple of days, Ben won’t know what to do with himself.”“Maybe you’re right,” I say, tossing more candy corn into my mouth (therapy in a bag). “Damn straight, I am. Now, the biggest question: Can I fit into your suitcase? Because I really don’t feel like staying here by myself.”