“Maybe he was real. Maybe I'd made him up. Either way, he didn't think I needed him anymore. Maybe he was right.”

“They saw him walk away, leave a world he'd never really been part of. They saw him pull his hat down low and get onto his bike. He forgot the Walkman's earplugs. Maybe, Anna thought, he didn't need them anymore; maybe the white noise had finally made it into his head.”

“I was harder than Dante. I think I'd tried to hide that hardness from him because I'd wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn't hard.”

“I didn't think he was in love with me and I had no idea what I felt for him, but he wanted me, and maybe that was enough.”

“He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.”

“Maybe it was tact that made Benjamin sigh. He didn't roll his eyes or look pained, which was pretty damn magnanimous of him.”