I was surprised. I'd always associated belief in heaven with, frankly, a kind of intellectual disengagement. But Gus wasn't dumb.

You're not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life.

I always had this secret suspicion that I was special.

dating you would be like a series of unnecessary root canals interspersed with occasional makeout sessions.

And yes, again, that was it exactly. A retyper and not a writer. A prodigy and not a genius.

I wanted to know that he would be okay if I died. I wanted to not be a grenade, to not be a malevolent force in the lives of people I loved.

So she became impulsive, scared by her inaction into perpetual action. When the Eagle confronted her with the expulsion, maybe she blurted out Marya's name because it was the first that came to mind, because in that moment she didn't want to get expelled and she couldn't think past that moment. She was scared, sure. But more importantly, maybe she'd been scared of being paralyzed by fear again. ~Miles/Pudge on Alaska, pg 120-121