“The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after another—it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.”

“In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, there’s not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay folks in her literature, because see point a).”

“God damn it," Thomas said as he sat down at the table, carrying a tray so piled with food that it was a miracle he could even lift it. "Aren't we all just too good-looking for words.”

“Damn real live people, getting in the way of peaceful ideals.”

“Don’t discount that part of who he was just because you didn’t know it. None of us are all of who we are to any one person.”

“There is a moment of surface tension when a knife blade presents its demand and the flesh honors it. An instant of pressure before the puncture, the rip before the slide, a small eternity easy to miss but impossible to ignore if you’ve felt it before. I lived in that moment a great while for the small sliver of time it was there.”

“It’s a hell of a thing to say good-bye to your whole life.”