“I didn't know what to say when someone's given you a small free kiss in the dark ...”

“Then I kissed Max because I loved him, and everyone I had ever loved before had gone away and I had never kissed them goodbye.”

“... and all we knew about her that we didn't know the night before was that she had eyes like pansies and skin like the moon.”

“I couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. They were wet and dark and shining, like pools of deep, still water. For a second I thought I could see pictures in them, like I was looking right inside her to where her memories were. She smiled, and I wondered if she knew what I'd seen or if she could see the pictures I kept hidden inside myself.”

“I didn't understand right away what she meant. But her words soaked through my skull like warm oil, behind my eyes, down my spine and into the empty space inside me.”

“You might think what I tell you next is all a dream, or that I've imagined it. I can't help it if that's what you think, but I swear it's true. Sometimes the truest things are the hardest to believe.”

“... we sat back and let the moon shine itself all over her, and we saw that Tia was full of light. Billy said that when we die the darkness leaves us.'We're pure and perfect then,' he said, 'the way we are when we're born.”