“I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

“I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.”

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

“Sometimes I wish they'd ask for my wisdom more often - there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable - so painless. It's what they've chosen.”

“Yeah, Pudge is adorable / but you want incorrigible / so Jake is more endurable / 'cause he's so - damn. Damn. I almost had four rhymes on adorable. But all I could think of was unfloorable, which isn't even a word." - Takumi”

“I had forgotten this about love: how the simple things- the turn away, the turn towards- could be so complicated, and how the complicated things- the stolen night, the right words- could be so simple.”