“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.”

“I sigh. “But if you’d talked to Jules—if she could hear you . . .” My voice trails off.“Then you wouldn’t feel quite so crazy?” Oliver asks gently. “Can’t you believe in me, if I believe in you?”

“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.”

“I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.”

“Here I am, wasting away inside a book I wish I could escape, and all she wants to do is stay in the story. If I could talk to this girl Delilah, I’d ask her why on earth she would ever trade a single second of the world she’s in for the one in which I’m stuck”

“You saved me," I said. Nathaniel put his hands on either side of my face. "I had to," he said. "So you could save me back.”

“When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires”