All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

To be abandoned like that! Shut out when you most need to be loved.

And as paralyzing and upsetting as all the never agains were, the final leaving felt perfect. Pure. The most distilled possible form of liberation. Everything that mattered except one lousy picture was in the trash, but it felt so great. I started jogging, wanting to put even more distance between myself and school. It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.

The sky is like a monochromatic contemporay painting, drawing me in its illusion of depth, pulling me up.

I’ll give you my strength if I can have your remission.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.