Lies are just stories, and stories are all that matter. We all tell stories. Some are more truthful than others, maybe, but in the end the only thing that counts is what you can make people believe.

I don't know where to go. I don't know what comes now." "Don't worry," Will said. "We'll figure something out." Liesl managed to smile at him. She liked that word: *we*. It sounded warm and open, like a hug.

"And I love you too." His fingers skate the edge of my jaw, dance briefly over my lips. "You should know that. You have to know that."

That's when you realize that most of it-life, the relentless mechanism of existing-isn't about you. It doesn't include you at all. It will thrust onward even after you've jumped the edge. Even after you're dead.

It's too late. I've seen things...I've lost things you can't understand.

Huamns, uregulated, are cruel and capricious; violet and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good.

I wonder whether she was sorry for leaving us behind.