Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.

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.

Dead people can be our heroes because they can't disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.

How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts?

It doesn't take skill to stand in a place were no bullets find you, or to fire into the dark and hit a man you didn't see.

I try to catch my breath and calm myself down, but it isn't easy. I was dead. I was dead, and then i wasn't, and why? Because of Peter? Peter? I stare at him. He still looks so innocent, despite all that he has done to prove that he is not. His hair lies smooth against his head, shiny and dark, like we didn't just run for a mile at full speed. His round eyes scan the stairwell and then rest on my face. "What?" he says. "Why are you looking at me like that?" " How did you do it?" I say.

I pause a second. He doesn't look at me the way Will, Christina, and Al sometimes do - like I am too small and too weak to be of any use, and they pity me for it.