“Cuz when I held you for the first time this morning and fed you from my own body, I felt so much love for you it was almost like pain, almost like I couldn't stand it one longer.”

“Cept for Ben, who I can’t describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won’t, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn’t be the worst choice you could make that morning.”

“Here is the hardest hit of all, O'Malley," Harry said. "Here is the very worst thing I can do to you."He held out his hand, as if asking for a handshake. He was asking for a handshake.Conor responded almost automatically, putting out his own hand and shaking Harry's before he even thought about what he was doing. They shook hands like two businessmen at the end of a meeting."Goodbye, O'Malley," Harry said, looking into Conor's eyes. "I no longer see you.”

“You be as angry as you need to be," she said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard."He couldn't look at her. He just couldn't."And if, one day," she said, really crying now, "you look back and you feel bad for being so angry, if you feel bad for being so angry at me that you couldn't even speak to me, then you have to know, Conor, you have to know that it was okay. It was okay. That I knew. I know, okay? I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud. All right?" He still couldn't look at her. He couldn't raise his head, it felt so heavy. He was bent in two, like he was being torn right down through his middle.But he nodded.”

“I’ll find you—Keep calling for me, Viola—Cuz here I come.”

“Almost like being in the nightmare, that same feverish blur of the world slipping off its axis, but this time he was the one in control, this time he was the nightmare.”

“Just cuz yer going there and I'm staying here," I say. "It don't mean we're parting.""No," she says and I know she understands. "No, it certainly doesn't.""I ain't parting from you again," I say, still looking at our fingers. "Not even in my head.”