“But one thing that I was learning about what happened when you stuck around—it usually seemed that other people were willing to stick by you as well.”

“there was something about being alone in places that were usually filled with people that made them seem particularly empty when it was just you.”

“I wasn't sure what would happen with us. I knew that there were no guarantees. Terrible things happened when you were least expecting them, on sunny Saturday mornings, and the consequences just had to be lived with, every day. But it seemed that wonderful things could happen too. You could be forced to take a trip, not knowing who you would meet. Not knowing that it would change your life.”

“She’s been trying to escape since she was little. The thing I don’t think she’s realized is that eventually you have to stop. And what happens when you do?”

“The thing is that people only get hurt—really hurt—when they’re trying to play it safe. That’s when people get injured, when they pull back at the last second because they’re scared. They hurt themselves and other people.”

“I looked away from his direct gaze and down at the scratched surface of the table. Someone had etched into it RYAN LOVES MEGAN ALWAYS...I wondered who Ryan and Megan were. And if, wherever they were, they'd made it. I wondered how anyone could have been so sure about a concept so tenuous and impossible as 'always' that they'd be willing to carve it into a tabletop.”

“Looking at it, I got, for the first time, why people would bring flowers to sick people, stuck inside the hospital with no way to get outside. It was like bringing them a little bit of the world that was going on without them.”