“There was no doubt even for a child as young as I'd been, that she'd raised his ghost. I knew then, the only thing that really ever haunts a person is regret.”

“Before you knew it, a wonder could mix with the plain old earth beneath your feet until you could no longer tell the difference at all.”

“Besides you can't steal cake. Nobody owns cake. If you don't have sense to know cake's meant to be eaten up, you ought not be making one.”

“Some of the books I'd read had told me that love is fleeting; some of the other books I'd read had told me that love is eternal. But they were wrong. Love isn't either of those things. Love is not wanting the thing you love to ever end.”

“He loved her.Jay Heaton, her best friend since childhood was in love with her. He didn't say it but she knew that it was true.And the part that really freaked her out, the part that caught her completely off guard, is that he wasn't alone. Because even though she'd been denying it for a long, long time, it had always been there... waiting beneath the surface of their friendship. And now that it was out there was no going back. And it was so weird to even be thinking it but...... she was in love with him too.”

“But then again, I was pretty certain I'd make more mistakes, so I didn't dwell on the one I'd just made too long. This is another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: if you make a mistake, don't dwell on it too long, because you'll make more of them.”

“I opened the book to the title page, which said the book was "A Fictional Memoir." I had no idea what this meant, except that maybe it was one of the ways that Exley was crazy: maybe when he called his book a fictional memoir, it meant that he couldn't make up his mind, which is one of the things people really mean when they call someone crazy.”