“The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.”

“It's all you think about, all you talk about, and all you want us to talk about. What in the world would we call something like that? Oh, yeah! An obsession!”

“I seem at once cursed to say precisely what I'm thinking to him and unable to tell what he thinks about it.”

“I wasn’t sure which of us was being more selfish—her, for wanting something that no one could promise, or me, for not promising her something that was too painfully impossible to want.”

“No, you have to talk first. You wanted to talk. It means you say something and I respond and you talk back again. It's one of the human race's most shining achievements. It's called a conversation.”

“It was about falling asleep with Sam's chest pressed against my back so I could feel his heart slow to match mine. It was about growing up and realizing that the feel of his arms around me, the smell of him when he was sleeping, the sound of his breathing -- that was home and everything I wanted at the end of the day. It wasn't the same as being with him and we were awake.”

“Tourists, a lot of them, wearing unfamiliar faces. There is something subtly different about them, like they're a different species...They're related to us like Dove is related to the water horses.”