The light filtered throught the leaves and pine needles above as if through lace, the ground spotted in shadow.

I enjoy writing about people falling in love, probably because I think the first time you fall in love is the first time that you have to figure out how you're going to orient your life. What are you going to value? What's going to be most important to you? And I think that's really interesting to write about.

Of course I tensed up when he touched me. To be with him was to hurt him-inevitably. And that's what I'd felt as he reached for me: I'd felt as though I were committing an act of violence against him, because I was.

I thought being an adult meant knowing what you believe, but that has not been my experience.

Augustus," I said. "Really. You don't have to do this." "Sure I do," he said. "I found my Wish." "God, you're the best," I told him. "I bet you say that to all the boys who finance your international travel," he answered.

We only have so long to play in the dirt and ask questions of rivers.

So why don't you go home for vacations?' I asked her. I'm just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them.