“Maybe this time she wanted to be found, and to be found by me.”

“I think my school friends wanted to help me through cancer, but they eventually found out that they couldn't. For one thing, there was no through.”

“And he found himself thinking that maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other—maybe they're also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long.”

“Tiny, the next time that you try to set me up with a girl with a secret boyfriend can you at least INFORM me that she has a secret boyfriend? Also, if you don't call me back within five minutes, I'm going to assume you found a way back to Evanston. Furthermore, you are an asshat. That is all.”

“On the morning in question, she wore white shorts and a pink T-shirt that featured a green dragon breathing a fire of orange glitter. It is difficult to explain how awesome I found this T-shirt at the time.”

“So we gave up. I'd finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be discovered. We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. I still did not know her as I wanted to, but I never could. She made it impossible for me. And the accident, the suicide, would never be anything else, and I was left to ask, Did I help you to a fate you didn't want, Alaska, or did I jsut assist in your willful self-destruction? Because they are different crimes, and I didn't know wheter to feel angry at myself for letting go. But we knew what could be found out, and in finding out, she had made us closer- the Colonel adn Takumi and me, anyway. And that was it. She didn't leave me enough to discover her, but she left me enough to rediscover the Great Perhaps.”

“He wanted her to call; he wanted her to miss him; but as it turned out, he was okay. He'd never found single life so interesting before.”