“The roof was torn off the gym. God's way of telling the jocks that they'd better remember who's really charge.”

“The walls were coming down around me, but still, I couldn't imagine telling the truth. Not now. It was too late. How can I tell Mom and Dad what we'd done? It would ruin everything. It would ruin their image of me; it would ruin every thought they'd ever had about who I was. It would be another death.Another loss. Another miscarriage.”

“I think about how we can’t always live in the moment because moments pass, and when we’re lucky, we have the kind of moments that we can’t help wanting to go back to. We think about them, remember how they felt, and when more time passes we tell stories of these moments that are worth reliving.”

“Precision about language can be really, really annoying. It can make you miss the point of what the other person is saying altogether.”

“Harper, I..."You don't have to say it."I don't?"I know."You know what?"I lean against him, nestling in the crook of his arm. I talk into his neck. I don't need to be able to see to find the parts of him I know.That morning in the trailer, when we had it to ourselves, and you made me breakfast, I wondered whether you would tell me you loved me, if you'd ever tell me, and I looked at you, and I thought you were going to say it, but instead you went off on a tangent about boysenberry jam."And?"And it was funny. And it was close enough to the real thing for me. Just sitting there with you like that."Boysenberry jam?"Boysenberry jam."Harper," he whispers into my hair.Yeah?"I boysenberry jam you.”

“The Little Drummer Boy" was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy seneless with his own drumsticks.”

“They're just words. And words alone don't really mean anything. It's what you feel and what you believe when you say them that matter.”