his eyes took in the barren slopes and the scattered boulders and the lonley gray road windingits way into the fading hills,and i could feel him thinking to himself this is no place to die

It was a truth that invaded her, like a dark disease, a truth too painful to talk about. And I was beginning to wonder if all I was doing was making it worse.

It's strange, the lack of emotion, the absence of drama in reality. When things happen in real life, extraordinary things, there's no music, there's no dah-dah-daaahhs. There's no close-ups. No dramatic camera angles. Nothing happens. Nothing stops, the rest of the world goes on.

I was thinking about all these things and more, but I wasn't really thinking about them at all. They were just there, floating around in the back of my mind, thinking about themselves. What I was really thinking about, of course, was Lucas.

I wanted to turn everything off, too. Just press a button - click - and shut myself down. Turn off my heart, turn off my mind, turn off my body - just lie there, senseless, like a dormant tree in winter, waiting for the spring to return.

The only difference now, for what it's worth, is that I know that these things don't matter. I know that I don't have to know anything, and I know that I don't have to fell frightened of not knowing-I just have to be here

To me a good book is like a quiet friend—a friend who’s happy to share thoughts and feelings with you, who’s always there when you need them. Best of all, this friend doesn’t have any secrets. They trust you to understand them. They take you to their innermost places. They share their sensations and emotions—and they let you experience them. Wherever you go and however you feel, they are always by your side. For an hour, a day, a week, or forever, their life becomes yours. Their story is your story. That’s the kind of book I’m trying to write.