Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.

When was the last good kiss you had?

I hated being careful, too - or wanted to, at least.

The truth is that in our lives we are all going to encounter questions that should be answered, that deserve to be answered, and yet prove unanswerable.

As far as all of our identities are dependent on how other people imagine us we are all making ourselves and each other up all the time

My stomach sank. JP had come so close. His immigrant parents had sacrificed so much.

We were just looking at ideas of each other.