“I know I'm still young and there's a lot of time for things to happen, but sometimes I think there is something about me that's wrong, that I'm not the kind of person anyone can fall in love with, and that I'll always just be alone.”

“They looked for one another when nothing else was happening, the way you pick up a magazine or look in the cupboard for a snack. Not exactly by accident and not exactly on purpose. You could go out in the world and do new things and meet new people, and then you could come home and just sit on the stoop with someone you had never not known, and watch lightning bugs blink on and off.”

“Maybe the grass is greener on the other side depends who was standing in it. Sometimes you have to go over there and look.”

“She was thinking that the grass really could be greener on the other side of the fence. It depended on who wa standing in the grass. Maybe you had to go take a look”

“Whatever her name was, she was pretty. She had a thick, careless braid of chestnut hair, a quick smile, and dark, merry eyes. She wore some kind of a fuzzy lavender pullover, and when she crossed her legs and lifted her guitar onto her lap, she had an interesting way of tucking the foot of the bottom leg back under her chair that made Hector feel melty. He looked away in self-preservation.”

“Their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room.”

“You must think I'm a complete idiot right? That I'm just some doormat who'll wait for you on the sidelines forever? That you can keep running back to her every time things get difficult and I'll just be okay with it?!”