“Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.”

“I don't believe in the white spectre-type of ghosts you get in stories, but what if ghosts are something else? Like memories somehow caught and trapped in time, released by being in certain places where things first happened.”

“Don't you think it's time you got out of your own way? Time you stop ending things before they start, time you stopped imagining the worst-case scenario, and giving in without a fight?""And if things turn out as bad as I imagine they might?""Then you chalk it up to shit happening and get on with your life.”

“Are you a girl or a boy?' Liesl was wearing the same thin nightshirt she had been wearing since Tuesday, when her father died, and it occurred to her that if the ghost was a boy, she should cover up. 'Neither,' the ghost replied.Liesel was startled. 'You have to be one or the other.''I don't have to be anything,' the ghost replied, sounding irritated. 'I am what I am and that's all. Things are different on the Other Side, you know. Things are... blurrier.”

“Time apparently did nothing but blunt grief’s sharpest edge so that it hacked rather than sliced.”

“On the very tip of his tongue is his Firerancher. Thin as tissue paper, it looks like the moon in the daytime sky. Suddenly love is looming over the car, as big and invisible as the ghost mountains of the Comobabi range. I smile at him and turn up the radio with my toes.”