And for a moment―for a split second―everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of my life, and a huge joy crests in my chest. I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own.

Sometimes I'm afraid to go to sleep because of what I'm leaving behind.

We're killers, all of us: We kill our lives, our past selves, the things that mattered. We bury them under slogans and excuses.

Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that-what we felt, what it meant- that's done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.

Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?" "I don't know any other way." "Let me show you." And then we're kissing. Or at least, I think we're kissing—I've only seen it done a couple of times, quick closed-mouth pecks at weddings or on formal occasions. But this isn't like anything I've ever seen, or imagined, or even dreamed: this is like music or dancing but better than both.

Welcome to the free world. We give people the power to choose. They can even choose the wrong thing. Beautiful, isn't it?

There is so much fragility in kissing, in other people: It is all glass.