“Chris loved you," I said, and the truth of it was almost a physical pain. She wouldn't look at me. "No he didn't. And he would have figured it out eventually. So would you? Then where would I have been?""Not here.”

“They would fade away-and I would be left alone to face the people at school,and the reporters,and Adriane,and all the places where Max had taken my hand or breathed in my ear or told me he loved me,and the emptiness that used to be Chris.”

“I guess that's the secret. It would never have occurred to Lia to want to escape -- but then she gets kicked out. Best thing that ever happened to her? I'm not sure she would say yes, because obliviousness tends to be rather pleasant, but once you realized you've been bolivious, there's no turning back. You can't un-know what you know.You know?”

“Nor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.”

“I told myself I deserved some good luck, overlooking the fact that it would call for substantially more than luck to thrust me into one of those narratives where plain-Jane new girl catches the eye of inexplicably single Prince Charming, because somehow the new school has revealed her wild, irresistible beauty, of which she was never before aware.”

“And you know what? If there is a God, and it's that same God who's so eager to have temples built in honor of his greatness, and wars fought over him, and people dropping to their knees telling him what a wonderful, magnificent being he is? If this all-powerful, all-knowing creature for some reason just can't get by without my worship? Then let him give me some proof. Or at least get over himself if I decide to go out and get some.”

“Nobody likes me,” he concluded at the tail end of a ten-minute pity fest.“Can’t imagine why,” Quinn murmured. I turned my snort of laughter into a fake cough,which was an embarrassingly feeble attempt at subterfuge when you consider the fact thatI didn’t have any lungs.”