When I am in the process of conceiving a story, I make sure it can be told with words and pictures. The story has to be creative, original and interesting in both areas. Many stories get rejected because they feel derivative.

I think I loved you more that summer than I ever loved anyone.

Miles: Well, things are kind of complicated right now. When you’re a grown-up, you’ll understand. Jonah: I don’t want to be a grown-up. Miles: Why not? Jonah: Because grown-ups always say that things are complicated.

There are things that happen that change the course of people's lives, but it's a function of everybody's lives.

If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it.

It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.

It's possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief . . . lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while it's not so overwhelming.