it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.

You know," he said, "I keep wanting to say that it's like Simon Snow threw up in here... but it's more like someone else ate Simon Snow—like somebody went to an all-you-care-to-eat Simon Snow buffet—and then threw up in here.

Just … isn’t giving up allowed sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?” “It sets a dangerous precedent.” “For avoiding pain?” “For avoiding life.

it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.

I’d know you in the dark,” he said. “From a thousand miles away. There’s nothing you could become that I haven’t already fallen in love with.

In some cases, she was actively trying not to make friends, though she usually stopped short of being rude. (Uptight, tense, and mildly misanthropic? Yes. Rude? No.)

But the explanations fell apart in her hands. Everything true was too hard to write--he was too much to lose. Everything she felt for him was too hot to touch.