I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchy-feely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.

It doesn't matter what it is that leaves a hole inside you. It just matters that it’s there.

No," he said calmly, filled with purpose. he took her arms lightly in his hands and shook her. "I am not giving you up." Emily looked at him, and for just a moment he could read her thoughts. Melanie use to say they were like twins, with their own secret, silent language. in that instant, Chris felt her fear and her resignation, and the knotty pain of coming up against a brick wall again and again. She glanced away, and he could breathe again. "The thing is, Chris" Emily said, "it's not your choice.

it was possible to grow up in an instant, that you could look down and see the line in the sand dividing your life now from what it used to be.

Dead isn’t angels or ghosts. It’s a physical state of breakdown, a change in all those carbon atoms that create the temporary house of a body so that they can return to their most elemental stage.

When you are attracted to people, it's because of the details. Their kindness. Their eyes. The fact that they can get you to laugh when you need it the most.

I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.