I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.

This was what true fear was--that you could never know other people, not completely. That you were always just guessing blind.

Po flickered. "Thank you?" it repeated. "What is that?" Liesl thought. "It means, You were wonderful," she said. "It means, I couldn't have done it without you.

That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which.

I love you. They can't take it away.

That is what Alex is now: a shadow-boy

Is it possible to tell the truth in a society of lies? Or must you always, of necessity, become a liar?