“It's like a telescope. My dad, no matter what he's doing, zooms right in so he can't see anything except what's right there with him at that minute. My mom, she's always on wide angle.”

“She understood what it was like to stand right in front of people you loved, even though they could not see you.”

“Once, I asked my mom why stars shine. She said they werenight-lights, so the angels could find their way around in Heaven.But when I asked my dad, he started talking about gas, and somehowI put it all together and figured that the food God served causedmultiple trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

“Can you tell me what it means to waive your rights?"I hold my breath as Jacob hesitates. And then slowly, beautifully, the right fist he's been banging against the wooden railing unfurls and is raised over his head, moving back and forth like a metronome.”

“It's a good life lesson, whether or. it you ever work with wolves, Edward.No matter what you do for someone- no matter if you feed him a bottle as a baby or curl up with him at night to keep him warm or go him food so he's not hungry- make one wrong move at the wrong moment, and you could become someone unrecognizable.”

“People believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what was right in front of their eyes.”

“I remember my mother telling me that, when she was a little girl in Catholic school, the nuns used to hit her left hand every time she wrote with it. Nowadays, if a teacher did that, she'd probably be arrested for child abuse. The optimist in me wants to believe sexuality will eventually be like handwriting: there's no right or wrong way to do it. We're all just wired differently. It's also worth noting that, when you meet someone, you never bother to ask if he's right or left handed. After all, does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?”