Shelby believed that love was like a solar eclipse - breathtakingly beautiful, absorbing, and capable of rendering you blind. She had not necessarily gone out of her way to avoid a relationship, but she hadn't wanted on either. It was called falling in love for a reason - because, inevitably, you crashed at the bottom.

A girl who is thirteen-which is hard, and difficult, and beautiful, and painful, and exhilarating.

When you don't know where you're headed, you find places no one else would ever explore.

That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatley wrapped lies

Hope and reality lie in inverse proportions, inside the walls of a hospital... Doubt is like dye. Once is spreads into the fabric of excuses you've woven, you'll never get rid of the stain.

If it's us", she whispered, "how come you get to decide?" When he didn't answer - couldn't answer - she turned and stared out the front window. As it turned out, they were still in the parking lot. They hadn't gotten anywhere at all.