I want to make a world more magical than my own. I don't care if it makes sense, I don't care if it's ridiculed or if, rather than a neat round planet that goes around forever, it ends with a cliff that falls off into nothing. I want to have my eyes wide open, and I want to see this room and at the same time, not this room.

Home?' I say. It's a word that can mean anywhere and nowhere.

It's best to let her go," he says. No, no, that's wrong. It's never right to give up on someone.

Linden just wants to protect her, is what I want to say. She's all he has. I left him. I'm at arms reach, but I've left him.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.

The trick was looking past the illusion, because the exit was never as far away as it seemed.

It doesn't matter how much his mother loves him; love is not enough to keep any of us alive.