“Love was supposed to move mountains, to make the world go round, to be all you need, but it fellapart at the details. It couldn’t save a single child-not the ones who’d gone to Sterling High that day,expecting the normal; not Josie Cormier; certainly not Peter. So what was the recipe? Was it love,mixed with something else for good measure? Luck? Hope? Forgiveness?”

“Love [is] supposed to move mountains, to make the world go round, to be all you need, but it [falls] apart at the deatils. It [can't] save a single person.”

“Love makes the world go round? Not at all. Whiskey makes it go round twice as fast.”

“She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. It was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair, to live a once-removed life, in a world once-removed from the one in which everyone else seemed to exist.”

“Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”

“Chicken,' Josie said. 'Have you ever been in love?'Peter looked at Josie, and thought of how they had once tied a note with their addresses to a helium balloon and let it go in her backyard, certain it would reach Mars. Instead, they had received a letter from a widow who lived two blocks away. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I think so.”