Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

Perhaps, thought Talon, there was a path in between. A way to shed their ignorance without losing their souls.

Because if their own parents didn't care enough about them to keep them, who would want them in Heaven?

What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Love, Allie concluded, wasn't blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.

Respect doesn't come without a little resentment.

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.