“The violin wasn't alive. It wasn't a baby or an animal, not living. But that would be easier to believe if I hadn't felt it breathe and sing.”

“I wasn't sent here to find angels! I wasn't sent here to dream of them. I wasn't sent here to hear them sing! I was sent here to be alive. To breathe and sweat and thirst and sometimes cry.”

“all this pain. all this crying. it wasn't that she hadn't expected it. she just underestimated it. it felt like a heavy, dark blanket that had been pulled across all of them. she hadn't know that it would make it difficult to breathe. she hadn't guess that it would seem so enveloping. and so total, and so permanent. ”

“The truth was, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it.”

“I wasn't lost, or frozen, or gone... I was alive; I was alive in my own perfect world.”

“It was silly, wasn't it? But the singing made it not silly.”