“You may be real, but you're still stuck in a book.”

“You can't be real," Delilah murmurs. "Says who?" I ask. "Did you really think that a story exists only when you're reading it?”

“Personally, I like books that make you think – books you’re still wondering about three days after you finish them; books you hand to a friend and say “Read this, so we can talk about it”. I suppose I’m just writing the kind of novel I like to read”

“The problem," he said, "with being one of the best is that you still have to get better. But you're competing with yourself.”

“When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound.You become the mutant who fell into the vat of acid, the Joker who can't remove his mask, the bionic man who's missing all his limbs and none of his heart.You are the thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you can't even remember what it was like. ”

“May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.”

“The problem with marriage - or may be its strength - was that it spanned a distance, and you were never the same person you started out being. If you were lucky, you could still recognize each other years later.”