“The sunset was spectacular, and they were safe in the minibus with the students from Estonia who were on their way to Salzburg for the Sound of Music tour. Jonah sat up front with girls and led a sing-along.Who would have guessed that the hip-hop star knew all the words to "Climb Ev'ry Mountain"?”

“Like how stars might sound. Or moons But not mountains. Too floaty for mountains. It's a sound like one planet singing to another, high stretched and full of different voices starting at different notes and sloping down to other different notes but all weaving together in a rope of sound that's sad but not sad and slow but not slow and all singing one word. One word.”

“The best word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.”

“And I knew it was true, that my words were made of stones, that they would last and I would climb them.”

“The cicadas were singing a song.It was a one-noted, one-worded; The words sounded like "please".They were singing and singing and singing and the whole world was falling down.”

“Teachers knew every one of the students, their secrets, their grades, their home situations. And all the students knew the teachers. It was like teachers were people who finally were the most popular at school.”