“Everybody was so kind. Strong, too. In the darkest days, the Lord puts the best people into your life.”“Quick, give me a throw pillow and some thread because that needs to be an Encouragement,”

“In the darkest days, the Lord puts the best people into your life." (p. 28)”

“You couldn't be more wrong," I said. "You are buying into the cross-stitched sentiments of your parents' throw pillows. You're arguing that the fragile, rare thing is beautiful simply because it is fragile and rare. But that's a lie, and you know it.""You're a hard person to comfort," Augustus said."Easy comfort isn't comforting," I said.”

“Whatever. Great day. Today. Best day of my life.”

“Mom: 'I really have to stop doing this. I need to get a life.'I think she's directing this at herself, or the universe, not really at me. Still, I can't help thinking that 'getting a life' is something only a complete idiot could believe. Like you can just drive to a store and get a life. See it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, 'Wow, I look much happier - I think this is the life I need to get!" Take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. If getting a life was that easy, we'd be one blissed-out race. But we're not. So it's like, Mom, your life isn't out there waiting, so don't think all you have to do is find it and get it. No, your life is right here. And yeah, it sucks. Lives usually do. So if you want things to change, you don't need to get a life. You need to get off your ass.”

“Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I dont want us to forget Alaska, and I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to und3erstand how people answered that question and the question each of you posed in your papers--how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called 'people's rotten lots in life.”

“In this world, Colin figured, you're best off staying with your kind.”