“He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious. He was a punk, she did ballet, what more can I say. He wanted her, she wouldn't tell, but secretly she wanted him as well”

“He was a boy, she was a girlCan I make it any more obviousHe was a punk, and she did ballet,What more can I sayHe wanted her,she wouldn't tell, but secretly she wanted him as well,All of her friends stuck up their nose,They didn't like his baggy clothesHe was a sk8er boi, she said see you later boy,he wasn't good enough for her”

“I have no idea,' he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.”

“Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string. The boy asked the girl to say "I love you" into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn't ask for any, or say "That's silly," or "We're too young for love," or even suggest that she was saying "I love you" because he asked her to. Instead she said, "I love you." The words traveled through the long, long string. The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there.”

“Tessa had begun to tremble. This is what she had always wanted someone to say. What she had always, in the darkest corner of her heart, wanted Will to say. Will, the boy who loved the same books she did, the same poetry she did, who made her laugh even when she was furious. And here he was standing in front of her, telling her he loved the words of her heart, the shape of her soul. Telling her something she had never imagined anyone would ever tell her. Telling her something she would never be told again, not in this way. And not by him.And it did not matter."It's too late", she said.”

“Better this way, what remained of his battered sensibilities told him. He was no good for her, anyway. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand that he was cursed. And, selfish as he was, he’d rather she hate him than he hate himself any more than he was already going to. Any more than he already did.”