“If I had learned anything by hanging out with her and her friends, it was that once you got up close to people, you realized that everyone - no matter how popular he or she might be - was just a living, breathing human being...”

“She felt the shiver starting in the back of her spine, the mixed inkling of fear and excitement ignite in her. She shouldn’t be feeling this way. He should disgust her. Because of him, her friends had just given up their mortal lives. Her friend Jacob, had been attacked by Unseelie. People had died from the very hands that were now so close to her. The very ones she wanted close to her.”

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

“Standing so close, he realized how much he missed her, but looking into her cold, indifferent gaze, he realized something else; it just might be too late.”

“I don't matter here, Shane. I feel like I just don't matter. Stupid, right?""No," he said. He sounded so gentle it broke her heart. "It's how most people feel most of the time, Claire. You've grown up being special, and this is how most people live their lives...on their own, unnoticed. And they get used to that feeling. It's just new for you.”

“Her room felt wonderful to her, as usual. She looked around with satisfaction… She imagined to herself that she would always live this way, even after she had grown up and moved away from her family. She planned to have exactly the same room wherever she was, because this room was her. No matter what happened out there in the rest of the world, she felt totally comfortable once she got into this room and closed the door.”