“Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.”

“I couldn't be mad at him for even a moment, and only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation...”

“The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Water's death with was Augustus Waters.”

“and then I realized there was no one else to call, which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Water's death was Augustus Water.”

“He couldn’t understand how I could be so bright in my other classes and a total failure in his. I must not be trying hard enough, he told me. In truth, I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to care. Geometric shapes with their dangerously sharp angles seemed the mortal enemies of words, and formulas were written in a hostage-taking language that made me despair of ever freeing the words from their captors. The best I could do was to avoid the enemy and save myself.”

“I was doing the wrong of never wanting or trying to better. And now I see that I have been letting things go as the would for a long time. Whatever came into my head I did and whatever didn’t come into my head I didn’t do.”