“left lipstick imprints the shape of grateful, rubbery sighs...”

“I stifled a sigh and ignored the Imprinted Drunk Vision Girl.”

“As for Thea, sometimes she looked more barbarous than they did in spite of the civilized lipstick and conventional shape of the jodhpurs she wore.”

“Dylan sighed. Some days he sighed more than others, and some days it seems like he did nothing but. He had a face that could have been on a Roman coin, and I'd heard his real name was something unpronouncable and Goth. Not like black-lipstick-and-angst, but actual barbarian.”

“Every day I'm eternally grateful that when everyone else turned right, I made a wide left.”

“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.”