“I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less.”

“A year. A thousand kisses. And now a thousand one, a thousand two. There are so many other place we could have ended up, but I have to believenone of them would have felt this right. "All I want is you" is not entirely true. I want so much more, and with you I think I can get it.”

“Reed lifts his lips from mine, and looking into my eyes, he murmurs, “I want those thousand years with you, Evie, you have no idea how much I want them. I want a thousand years, and then I want a hundred thousand more.”

“I want to remind you right quick what this country has been through, and the challenges this economy had faced over the last three years. First, we went through a recession. That means we were going backwards.”

“I didn't want to make the same mistake my parents made. I didn't want my love to fade away one day like an old scar. I wanted it to burn forever.”

“I'm sorry," he says, "for that time I kissed you at that party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn't have the guts to.”