I sat on the hill, the wind whispering through the long grass that surrounded me. I stared at the stars and wanted more than what I was and more than what the world was and just - wanted.

His was the disease we couldn’t cure. His was the good-bye that meant the most

When the end comes, dark and hungry I'll be alone, love When the end comes, black and starving I'll say good-bye, love.-from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

It matters, like this: I belong to Malvern, you don't.

She could've looked at the tiny miracles in front of her: my feet, my hands, my fingers, the shape of my shoulders beneath my jacket, my human body, but she only stared at my eyes. The wind whipped again, through the trees, but it had no force, no power over me. The cold bit at my fingers, but they stayed fingers. "Grace," I said, very softly. "Say something." "Sam," she said, and I crushed her to me.

Some words have multiple meanings. Scholastic, aware that I'm allergic to preservatives, kindly got someone to translate the phrase "I can only eat food without preservatives" into Italian. They warned me, however, as they taught me how to say it, that the Italian word for "preservatives" is the same as the word for "condom." So that I should be careful how I look when I say it.

You leave nothing to assumption," Dory Maud says. "You swallow her with your eyes. I'm surprised there's any of her left for the rest of us to see.