Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain.

But I know I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead — in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death — the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human — feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of navigating the unknown.

He had been my almost. My might-have-been. I was afraid of what I wanted most - His kiss. Still, I collected kiss stories. -Susie Salmon

I watched my brother and my father. The truth was very different from what we learned in school. The truth was the line between the living and the dead could be, it seemed, murky and blurred.

People grow up by living.

Books and novels in particular that grapple with quite a few things are difficult to explain, so I think that first line can come in a substitute for trying to form a longer sense of what the book is about.

As she brought prospective buyers through, the realtor said it was an oil stain, but it was me, seeping out of the bag.