We'll walk together holding hands, and kiss in broad daylight, and love each other as much as we want to, and no one will ever try to keep up apart.

But maybe you carried your demons with you everywhere, the way you carried your shadow.

My former people were not totally wrong. Love is a kind of possession. It’s a poison. And if Alex no longer loves me, I can’t bear to think that he might love somebody else.

I've never really thought about it before, but it's a miracle how many kinds of light there are in the world, how many skies: the pale brightness of spring, when it feels like the hole world's blushing; the lush, bright boldness of a July noon; purple storm skies and a green queasiness just before lightning strikes and crazy multicolored sunsets that look like someone's acid trip.

It's like high school holds two different worlds, revolving around each other an never touching; the haves and the have-nots. I guess it's a good thing. High school is supposed to prepare you for the real world, after all.

Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. "When you go swimming and you put your head under the water," Po said, "and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don't miss the air do you? You don't miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It's just different." "True." Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, "But I bet you'd miss it if you were drowning. I bet you'd really miss the air then."

A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing.