“It was fun, but it's over now. This is how things go.”

“The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.”

“There's no benchmark for how life's "supposed" to happen. There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, it's up to you how you respond to it.”

“There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.”

“Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.”

“I find a grin spreading across my face. I don't know what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, or what will happen when it's done, but at the very bottom of this rising siege-ladder, I at least know I'm going to see Julie again. I know I'm not going to say goodbye. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we'll see what happens when we say Yes while this rigor mortis world screams No.We start lumbering north on the southbound freeway, and the thunder drifts away towards the mountains as if it's scared of us.Here we are on the road. We must be going somewhere.”

“She remembers sprinting over the thin after-waves that slid over each other like sheets of glass. When she ran with the waves it looked like she wasn’t moving. When she ran against them it looked like she was flying. She refuses to believe her brother will never know these things. Somewhere, they will find sand.”