“... Sometimes -- in the rare moments when she wasn't causing quite serious mental discomfort -- being friends with Zoe was like being knocked dizzy by grace.”

“It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't even about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world.”

“He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.”

“Beer's nice for being glad and dizzy, and sometimes for the mystery and stuff, but the happy that comes out of a beer can is not like the real happy you got to make in your heart.”

“...being able to listen to unrepeatable secrets, wishes, and desires wasn't as wonderful as it seemed...being aware of what other people felt at every moment would come to cause him a lot of headaches, and huge disappointments in love.”

“When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, "No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on."-Richard (?) nee Cromwell to Thomas Cromwell,358”