She even touches Jimmy's face on the photos, and I see what it is to love someone like Milla loved that man. Her fingertips are made of love.

It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words. You bastards, she thought. You lovely bastards. Don’t make me happy. Please, don’t fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this.

Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver.

She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.

Yes, I'm often reminded of her, and in one of my array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt - an immense leap of an attempt - to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.

We expressed love for this dog by ... knowing without showing that we cared for him.

... And the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever.