“Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”

“I think humans have always been desperate. I think it has always been about doing something awful if it might help, when the only other option is death. Maybe that's what being a parent is supposed to feel like.”

“Helplessly I look at him. He will never be just Rowan again. I will never be just Rhine. Everything has been tampered with.”

“Every word out of your mouth," he pants, "has been a lie, hasn't it?""No," I say softly. "Not everything.""What about your name?" he says. "Is your name even Rhine?”

“‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.”

“My head is my favorite swimming pool.”

“In another time, in another place, I wonder who they might have been.”