It's the same thing,' I told her. 'What is?' 'Being afraid and being alive.' 'No,' she said slowly, and now it was as if she was speaking a language she knew at first I wouldn't understand, the very words, not to mention the concept, being foreign to me. 'Macy, no. It's not.

As I rolled over, stretching out, my only thought was to go back to the dream I'd been having, which I couldn't remember, other than that it had been good, in that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.

He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.

You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.

Even if you do make tons of new friends,” I told him, “try not to forget where you came from, okay?

What happened to goodbye?

It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder ― or impossible ― to lose.