“It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.”

“She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.”

“Blue tried not to look at Gansey's boat shoes; she felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn't wearing them.”

“The throw truck driver and car-lot owner stood there, peering at us. Hier voice came through, muffled by the glass. ''You find what you're looking for?'' Grace reached across and rolled down the window. She was talking to him but looking at me, gaze intense, when she said, ''Absolutely.”

“...she loved one of them most of all. And this one loved her back. He loved her back so hard that even the things that weren't special about her became special: the way she tapped her pencil on her teeth, the off-key songs she sang in the shower, how when she kissed him he knew it meant forever.”

“Don't take this the wrong way," Blue replied. Her cheeks felt a little warm, but she was well into this conversation and she couldn't back down now. "Because I know you're going to think I feel bad about it, and I don't." "All right." "Because I'm not pretty. Not in the way Aglionby boys seem to lie." "I go to Aglionby," Adam said. Adam did not seem to go to Aglinoby like other boys went to Aglionby. "I think you're pretty," he said.”

“I can see her clearly, standing on the rock beside Peg Gratton, unflinching before Eaton and the rest of the race committee. I can't remember when I've been that brave, and it shames me. The truth is, I feel myself being fascinated and repelled by her; She's both a mirror of myself and a door to part of the island that i'm not. It's like when the mare goddess looked into my eye; I felt that there was a part of myself that I didn't know.”