“She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it.”

“Of course I told him about you," Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it”

“Meg often slept with men she didn't want to sleep with: she didn't know how to say no. More precisely, she didn't know she was allowed to say no.”

“She didn't say goodbye. She set off up the street, dodging the pedestrians, walking fast. He watched her, waiting to see if she might look back. But of course she didn't. He knew she wouldn't. She wasn't the looking-back kind.”

“The truth is that she told me she couldn't love me. When she said goodbye, she was saying goodbye forever. And yet.I made myself forget. I don't know why. I keep asking myself. But I did.”

“Goodbye," she said.When I didn't say it back, she rested her hand on the top of my head. The weight was strange and gentle. "I love you," she said. "And when I tell you goodbye, I don't mean forever or for long. Just that I'm going home now, and so are you.”