She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplace disgust for another person's genetics.

Blood is a strange color. It's darker than you expect it to be.

When her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable- except that she had jumped first. The stiff had jumped first. Even I didn't jump first. Her eyes were so stern, so insistent. Beautiful.

I also don't believe that whatever come after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions-that sounds too much like an Erudite afterlife to me, all accuracy and no feeling.

He doesn’t scowl, but his mouth is so tense that I know he’s angry with me. 'Don’t be an idiot,' he says. 'An idiot?' Is he talking about the blanket? 'You were lying.

We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.

That's the first time I've ever said those words out loud, and now I hear how strange they are. How many young men fear that there is a monster instead them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves.