“It still hurts," she whispered. "Even when you're doing it for someone else, that doesn't stop your ribs from getting cracked, or your wrist swelling, or your cuts from bleeding.”

“When I kept someone else from getting hurt, did I hurt you?”

“She shrugged. "You can be happy for someone else's good fortune, but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.”

“Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?”

“You can be happy for someone else's good fortune but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.”

“The ability to find sparks may be buried so deep in you that you stop believing there's a God. Until someone comes along, with so much light in her that you can't help but see your own, and when you're together,that light grows even brighter.”

“As it turned out, hell wasn't watching the people you love get hurt; it was coming in during the second act, when it was already too late to stop it from happening.”