You can't just make me different and then leave. You can't. You can't change me and make my whole life centered around you, then leave.

Maybe all the strings inside him broke.

And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.

That is, to me at least, one of the most helpful and useful things books do for us: They are generous enough to allow us to choose what matters to us.

She never liked me much, but she sure loved me

It's not fair," I said. "It's just so goddamned unfair." "The world," he said, "is not a wishgranting factory.

She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth." "Um, okay. So what is it?" "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about."