“What is it? A prize or something?No. It's not a prize and I'm not a prize. But it's mine. It belongs to me and I can only give it away once, and I want to be so sure when it happens. I don't want to say that the first time for me was bad or it didn't mean a thing.”

“Just say she never gets to hear me say that I always knew she was something special and that's why I was so horrible to her. Because people with that much spirit frighten the hell out of me. They make me want to be a better person when I know it's not possible.”

“A kiss is the prize?’ he asked sadly. ‘Even more than giving me the rest of you? It should be the other way round, Princess. In the real world, it's called courting. You let a lad kiss you and then you offer him more.’ ‘Let me tell you something, Olivier,’ she said with tears of sorrow in her eyes, ‘this is my real world.”

“Do you want to hang out? At your place or something?" Hanging out with Jimmy Hailler will mean that I have to say hello to him every day. I'm not ready to say hello to him every day. Too much commitment. It's bad enough that I'm sharing chocolate brownies swith him. I shake my head. "Not today.”

“He is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and it's not about his face, but the life force I can see in him. It's the smile and the pure promise of everything he has to offer. Like he's saying, 'Here I am world, are you ready for so much passion and beauty and goodness and love and every other word that should be in the dictionary under the word life?' Except this boy is dead, and the unnaturalness of it makes me want to pull my hair out with Tate and Narnie and Fitz and Jude's grief all combined. It makes me want to yell at the God that I wish I didn't believe in. For hogging him all to himself. I want to say, 'You greedy God. Give him back. I needed him here.”

“The head nerd of the Cadets is my partner and when it's over he asks me for my number. I'm very flattered and he looks a bit crestfallen when I say no."It's because they don't have coverage out here," Griggs tells him."No," I say, looking up at Griggs. "It's actually because my heart belongs to someone else." And if I could bottle the look on his face, I'd keep it by my bedside for the rest of my life.”

“Jonah Griggs. Not just a name but a state of mind I never want to revisit, although I do keep him at the back of my mind for those times I get me hopes raised about something. So then I can slap myself into reality and remind myself of what happens when you let someone into your sacred space. Jonah Griggs is my second reminder to never ever trust another human being. My mother was first.”