At home I used to spend calm, pleasant nights with my family. My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids. My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything was quiet. I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free.

She wanted us to have more than five choices. Now we have none.

What do you think they're going to do to us when they find us guilty?" she says after a few minutes of silence have passed. "Honestly?" "Does now seem like the time for honesty?" I look at her from the corner of my eye. "I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.

But now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.

Life's something we already understand. Death is a mystery.

You don't have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can't you see how stupid that is?

It is more important for you to be safe than right, for the time being. Understand? (...) But please, when you see an opportunity...ruin them