“I thought it was good to test yourself sometimes. It was good to see how much you could take.”

“We walked downtown in the rain, both of us sucking on those hot, spicy mints we hadn't meant to buy. When the spiciness started to kick in, I almost spat mine out, but then I didn't. I thought it was good to test yourself sometimes. It was good to see how much you could take.”

“The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.”

“I knew the way lost hopes could be dangerous, how they could turn a person into someone they never thought they'd be.”

“Watching people is a good hobby, but you have to be careful about it. You can’t let people catch you staring at them. If people catch you, they treat you like a first-class criminal. And maybe they’re right to do that. Maybe it should be a crime to try to see things about people they don’t want you to see.”

“Greta knows that for me there are no good parties. I’m okay with one or two people, but more than that and I turn into a naked mole rat. That’s what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I’m trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it’s over and there’s one more person in the world who thinks I’m a complete and total waste of space.”

“I thought how that was wrong and terrible and beautiful all at the same time.”