I thought if I followed the rules, things would turn out all right. that's the thing about the cure, isn't it? It isn't just about deliria at all. It's about order. A path for everyone. You just have to follow it and everything will be okay. That's what the DFA is about. That's what I belevied in-what I've had to believe in. Because otherwise, it's just...chaos.

I’ve never really had a party before.” “Why did you have one now?” I say, just to keep him talking. He gives a half laugh. “I thought if I had a party, you would come.

This is what we are made for: promises, pledges, and sworn oaths of obedience.

They’d already taken her from me once. I didn’t want to lose her again.

If you want something, if you take it for your own, you'll always be taking it from someone else.

They couldn’t have known that even this was a lie—that we never really choose, not entirely. We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven’t chosen at all. But maybe happiness isn’t in the choosing. Maybe it’s in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.

i feel like a curtain has dropped away and i'm seeing people for who they really are, different, and sharp, and unknowable.