We're all just facilitators. The real business is done by readers.

And even though he felt pitiful and ridiculous, he didn't want it to end, because he knew the absence of her would hurt more than any breakup ever could.

I didn't know whether to trust Alaska, and I'd certainly had enough of her unpredictability - cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next. I preferred the Colonel: At least when he was cranky, he had a reason.

I pulled the oxygen tubes from my nostrils and raised the tube up over my head, handing it to Dad. I wanted it to be just me and just him.

He loved the scratching of pencil against paper when he was focused: it meant something was happening.

You used," he said, and then took a sharp breath, "to call me Augustus.

Colin did not laugh. Instead he thought, Tampons have strings? Why? Of all the major human mysteries - God, the nature of the universe, etc. - he knew the least about tampons. To Colin, tampons were a little bit like grizzly bears: he was aware of their existence, but he'd never seen on in the wild, and didn't really care to.