“We're told that the Protectosphere is clear, but Grandma always said that the sky's not as clear as it was when she was a little girl. She said the real sky is endless. I never understood endless. Everything in my life had limits. But tonight in this darkness, I'm sure I can see real stars. And tonight I almost understand a place without end. I'm in an endless night with no job, no friends, and no future.”

“We want to discover who we are without the burden of sight. It's easy to believe we are the same inside because we look so similar. Sanna says only in the dark can we know the truth, but I'm not so sure. Darkness conceals.”

“But then Klaudia's lips curled ino a conniving smile."Actually, Aria, I'm going to fuck your boyfriend. Tonight."Aria started at her. It felt like Klaudia had just punched her in the throat. "Excuse me?"Klaudia scooted closer to Aria. "I'm going to fuck your boyfried," she said again -in textbook-perfect English. "Tonight. And there's nothing you can do about it.”

“I can't change what happened. If I'm honest, I don't want to. I won't regret it. I'll keep those memories trapped in a bubble away from labels of good and bad and right and wrong”

“My friends, tonight we bring you something entirely different. Something special. The poets will rest, the sonnets will be silent, and what words of love there are will not be spoken. Tonight, my friends, and I can hear you out there, sitting alone, like me, in your chairs, your beds, driving down an empty street with no one but me to listen to your weeping; tonight, I'm going to bring you Armageddon.”

“Ethan and I are done," I said finally."I'm sorry.""He was my first boyfriend.""I know.""The only real boyfriend I've had. I'm a senior in high school and he was my only real boyfriend.""I know.""And I won't find another one at Jones Hall. That is guaranteed.""Okay.""This is all very sad and tragic," I said.Alan unwrapped a sleeve of Smarties. "Yet, oddly, you don't seem that upset.""I know.”

“I wanted so much when I was young. I was an endless abyss of want, of need of desperate dreams for myself that defied logic. The promise of what was to come hung like rings around the moon on clear autumn nights; the future was unmistakeable. It was always there, glistening in the dark and suggesting that life was little more than climbing a ladder into the sky, where I could reach up with one hand and secure everything that I had ever hoped for in my grasping fingers.Oh, I dreamed.And they are not easy to give up, these dreams.”