“Then I level my smile at Simon, and this smile is one I do feel, and it’s definitely an activity, too — the activity of fist suppression.”

“It’s all very deliciously diabolical my friend.” He smiles and I smile. We’re both pretty pleased with the plan. And increasingly pleased with each other.”

“Love is a state of the heart, but also, an activity. And quite an awesome one.”

“I got it right Justine. Feel into it. Your sense of being a misfit blinds you to what your heart really wants. When you get around solid upstanding men you’re like a bird with tinfoil. It makes you incoherent on a romantic level.” “My affection is incoherent unless it’s for you That’s the line you’re giving me here ” “This is real.” He points out the door. “That isn’t.”

“All I could think of was you. All I can ever think about is you. Why am I always fighting it? Always fighting thinking about you, fighting this wonderful feeling about you. This aliveness. This love.” I look into his eyes and smile like a madwoman. “I love you!” I can’t stop saying it. “I love you. Love, love love.”

“Up ahead stands the fun house, which you enter through a clown’s smiling mouth.“I would kill myself if I was prisoner here,” Shelby says.“No, you wouldn’t, just out of courtesy,” I say, “because your body would be trapped in there after you die, and your friends would have to watch your corpse rot.”“Hmm,” Shelby says. “Smell it too.”“Well, now we’re looking on the bright side,” Packard says.”

“If I could go back to be shot in place of Avery, I would do so.""I know," I whisper."Not merely that I would do so, I would exalt to do so." She purses her lips, stares into nothing. "In both a dark and a bright way, I would exalt to take that death as my own.”