“If I think about what I wanted as a kid and what I want now they aint the same thing. I guess what I wanted wasnt what I wanted. . . .Hell, I dont know what I want. Never did. . . . When you're a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be. You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I tink you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain.”

“When you’re a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be, Billy said. You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I think you just wind up tryin to minimize the pain. Anyway this country aint the same. Nor anything in it. The war changed everthing. I dont think people even know it yet.”

“Dont ever hold back anything back from me. I want to now... I want to know what you're feeling , even if you think I don't, even if you have trouble saying it”

“Man," he said, "I'm not afraid of graveyards. The dead are just, you know, people who wanted the same things you and I want.""What do we want?" I asked blurrily."Aw, man, you know," he said. "We just want, well, the same things these people wanted.""What was that?"He shrugged. "To live, I guess," he said.”

“You don't understand. I didn't want to forget what happened, Zander. I wanted to forget you. I wanted to forget how I felt about you...." "Is this your way of telling me you finally did?" he whispered. "No. I didn't. I never have. That's the problem. It didn't work....Pain isn't freeing. It's just one more reminder of what you've lost. And now all I have are these ugly scars. That's what I'll have when this is all over.”

“I don’t want any of this. I just want to be what I was before you showed up here and all hell broke loose. I want to be popular and dating the hottest guy in school. Now I’m none of those things, and I’m a human who has scary visions and don’t know what to do about any of it.”