“The Lord brings us into this world naked, but I don’t suppose he means us to stay that way”

“Sometimes the Lord brings us low before he can lift us higher.”

“Thanks for teaching us to talk. Thanks for teaching us to be of the world and in the world and to make our way. Thanks for teaching us to be alive! And thanks for staying inside of us.”

“Don’t leave us again, Lana,” he whispered roughly. “Don’t leave me. Stay. Please.”

“Our best moral stories don’t tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We’re not supposed to have it handed to us.”

“I don’t stay anywhere. I visit. I observe. I leave. I don’t ever stay.”I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information. Tell him to leave? Tell him to stay? But I don’t have time to consider any other alternatives, because he scoots in closer and brings his hands to my face, and I fall back into the bookcase as he kisses me with this intensity—like he wants to be here, and if he kisses me just long enough, deeply enough, none of what he just said will actually be true.”