What about the rest of your life?" She shrugged. "What about it?" "Aren't you worried about, like, forever?" "Forever is composed of nows," she says.

Collin Singleton could no more stay cool than a blue whale could stay skinny or Bangladesh could stay rich

What happens in the band room stays in the band room.

I wrote my first novel and my second novel in Chicago. It was the place where I became a writer. It's my favorite city.

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.

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

"Patience, grasshopper," I counseled. "You don't want to seem overeager." "Right, that's why I said tomorrow," he said. "I want to see you again tonight. But I'm willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow." I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious," he said."You don't even know me," I said. I grabbed the book from the center console. "How about I call you when I finish this?""But you don't even have my phone number," he said."I strongly suspect you wrote it in this book."He broke out into that goofy smile. "And you say we don't know each other."