I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon

The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: "booze affects material as it does people.

Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.

You save yourself or you remain unsaved.

How could it be that you could love someone so much and keep it secret from yourself as you woke daily so far from home?

There’s no condition one adjusts to so quickly as a state of war.

Like a medical procedure,' Ruth said. 'Intricate surgery is needed to patch up the planet.