There were five others before they got to him. He smiled a little when his turn came. His voice was low, smoky, and dead sexy. “My name is Augustus Waters,” he said. “I’m seventeen. I had a little touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago, but I’m just here today at Isaac’s request.” “And how are you feeling?” asked Patrick. “Oh, I’m grand.” Augustus Waters smiled with a corner of his mouth. “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.

I think if you keep the box closed long enough you do kill the cat, actually.

Anyway, that was the last good day I had with Gus until the Last Good Day.

Cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next.

You completely unscatter me, and I appreciate that too much.

As lives go, I'll take the quietly desperate over the radically bipolar.

I told myself – as I’ve told myself before – that the body shuts down when the pain gets too bad, that consciousness is temporary, that this will pass. But just like always, I didn’t slip away. I was left on the shore with the waves washing over me, unable to drown.