“I know the mall is just a lot of fake plants and fake food and people buying crap for too much money, and at Christmas people pay for their kids to talk to Santa, learning greed the way some kids learn piano. I know all that. I can hear the Muzak, smell the waffle fries. Like everybody else, I walk around stuck inside a cliche, like we're stars of some TV show we plan to watch later, if nothing else is on. But still, there's something hopeful about this place, too, and maybe it takes having a crazy mother to get that. People buy stuff, because they think they are going to need it, because they think their lives are going to keep skipping down the same old path, and I want so much for that to be true for them that it nearly makes me cry. The mall says, Nothing is terrible. The mall says, Life is small and adequate.”

“I realized about a month ago that there's a last time everyone skips across a street. And that most people I know have already skipped for the last time and don't know it.From here on out it will always be walking or running, growing older and buying things at the store or seeing friends or going to work, but never again will life impel them to skip. When I thought of this, the tragedy of it overwhelmed me so that I skipped all the way home from my friend's house.Skipping is a strange thing. Because it means something. Like trains make the sound of leaving. Skipping is the motion of being totally free, childlike, abandoned of self and to self.But I learned something else about skipping. You can't fake it. Or make it happen. It must be something that happens to you. (pp. 152-153)”

“I think that love is like candy.""I don't like candy either," I say. He smiles at me and shakes his head. "I think anyone who says they don't like candy just hasn't found the right flavor.”

“I think my heart is defective," Jillian says. I have to force myself to smile Jan looks at me. I get the joke, but for some reason it just isn't funny right now."I can fix that," Jeremy says, taking Jillian's headband from her. He pulls out the battery and looks at the wires that run from it. He twists one of them a little with his fingers and reinserts the battery."You are so nerdy," Jillian says. I look over at her. It's not what she said, but how she said it. It almost sounded like a compliment. "Yay," Jillian says, when he flips the switch and both hearts stay lit. Jillian takes the headband from him and slips it on. She wobbles her head making them clack together. "Jeremy," she says, grinning at him. "You fixed my broken heart.”

“Not my finest hour," he says, shaking his head."You realize you did it for no reason," I say. I tell him about talking to my dad and explain that I was crying because of that."That information would have been useful BEFORE I shoved him in the pool.”

“Exactly. And what about you, Calliope...is everyone in your family named after a...what is it? A keyboard? An organ?"It's a steam-powered piano. It's also the name of the Greek goddess of poetry. You should read stuff other than chemistry; you'd know these things." Her smirky smile again, her sleeve touching my arm.I feel like my skin has been removed, every nerve exposed. I open my mouth, and this is what comes out: "I think you are more goddess than piano." Stupid, stupid.But she laughs. "You know, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me today."You don't see too many calliopes," I tell herI'm Cal, actually. I mean, that's what I prefer."I meant the steam pianos...you don't see too many." She stops and looks at me, full-on, and right away I put it on the list of the best moments in my life.Until you said that, Eliot, I wasn't fully aware of the demise of the steam piano, so thank you. Really."I smirk at her and we both fight not to smile. "Okay, smart-ass," I say.Callipe and Eliot-Scrambeled Eggs at Midnight”

“[...] I think about the problem with running from your trouble . The problem is in the stopping. The whole time you think you're getting away from everything, the trouble is running like mad, too, trying to catch up with you. And it doesn't slow down when you do--it keeps on sprinting. So when trouble finally reaches you, it hits you hard(p107)”