“Jocelyn: 'I've dated a few nice boys. Though if things got serious, I ended it. I didn't want to involve some poor guy in all the stuff I was carrying around.'Noah: 'Excess baggage, you mean?'Jocelyn: 'More like three suitcases, a couple of steamer trunks, and a carry-on.”

“Nothing can unite two people like early morning insomnia. It was a bond Jack and I had that you never did. You always slept like you were dead. But at three or four in the morning, when no one else is awake, it’s a lot easier to open up.”

“I don't like being followed by you, Zach. In fact, I just don't like you. So stay out of my way.”

“You're carrying so much excess baggage,” a therapist she saw only once had told her. He was employing the expensive sifting-of-tea-leaves voice that she holds with utmost contempt.“Baggage?” Julia had repeated. She stood up. “Like I'm dragging bundles of old clothes? I'm carrying artifacts that breathe fire. I'm talking about a language of smoke. These are three-dimensional creatures that can mate. I'd no more leave them go by the side of the trail than I would my child. I'll carry them until someone amputates my arms.”

“I wanted to love my father. I wanted to, but I didn't. Sometimes I didn't even like him. he hadn't been a guy you could really get next to, because in a way he was never where you thought he was.”

“I wish I could take back the horrible things I've done to people. I wish I could go back in time and make things right, because even though I've been trying to, I might be making everything worse.”

“You're not getting in anything, so between us it's going to be outcest, and that's just another word for friendship. —Jocelyn Lawson”