“She wanted him to tell her that when you love someone so hard and so fierce, it was all right to do things that you knew were wrong.”

“You could only try so hard not to try too hard before you were right back around to trying too hard. And trying hard, as everyone told him, was wrong, all wrong.”

“Hazel knew her mother really meant I hope there is something you were dying to do at school today, that you are learning to love it there, and if you are not learning to love it there, can you please try harder? Because her mom seemed to think it was the sort of thing Hazel could choose to do, like she could choose to understand the rules when they weren’t even written in her language, like she could choose to make herself fit when she was so clearly shaped all wrong.”

“Diana knew it wouldn't be right, but then she told herself that things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.”

“If she’d ever had any doubts that she loved him, really loved him, she knew now. It was easy to love somebody when love was happy, but when it was hard, when it meant facing things you feared...that was different. He’d done it for her, many times. And now she had to do it for him.”

“Isn't that what most everyone wants? To be loved by someone so fiercely that you hold their world in your hands, that you were the one to keep it safe.”