“. . . Mind if I take the flamingo?""It's $2.89.""Whoa, Darren, you drive a hard bargain. How about I'm just going to take it?”

“You steal my donkey and then to apologize you bring me a flamingo?''He's irresistible, though,' Asher said, lifting Buddy onto his lap and pretending to squeeze his cheeks. 'Look at that face.''He is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.''I know,' Asher said, 'but he's one of God's creatures.”

“Just go with it. You are a princess.''What does that *mean*, though?' Cam asked. 'How-''Oh, my God, Campbell. Be quiet!' He laughed.”

“You can't force your will with the universe. You just have to trust how things unfold.”

“People keep talking about this unfolding. I can't trust the unfolding, okay? If there is some higher power making origami out of the universe, it hates my guts. I was a fat kid whose parents got divorced, whose father died, and then who got cancer herself. So no. I don't trust how things are going to unfold.”

“Or just don't wear it. Then you can check off the skinny-dipping and kill two birds.''I'm not surfing naked, Asher.''Rats,' he said.”

“You cannot conceive of the depths of my sorrow, Campbell Maria Cooper." Alicia brought her fist to her mouth and her other hand to the rail of the bed and took a deep breath before she continued. "I will never be the same when you are gone. Things for me will be dim and gray and flat. But there is one thing that will keep me going, Campbell, and that is the belief in my connection to you. This thing. This crazy enmeshed love feeling that I have is real. Like this cup is real. Or this phone is real. And it will not just go away when you do. Okay? Wherever you are going, you will be connected to me by this thing, and you will never, ever be alone, okay? I want you to know that.”