Justin is twenty-four years old: the world will never be more suited to him than it is now, he will never feel more embraced by life or have greater faith in his right to exist. The earth and the oxygen, the cities and lights, the nights and the beaches seem created for him and for those like him.

I sensed that he was dead, but wasn’t sure if death was forever. It seemed best to stay nearby, in case the chance came to make everything changed.

I want my life to be mystifying,” she declared, although she didn’t know what she meant.

I love you,” she told him, and he knew that this was true, and she knew that he believed her; but when she said it she saw the chain around his ankle, a length of links that let him wander, but not far. She did not see the chain around her own ankle, because love is blind.

She despised the sadness that hung inside her like old lace.

She is not a musical girl nor, intrinsically, a joyful girl; but the music of the four Swedes shook something awake inside her, and when she heard it she felt airborne and strong.

But what she feels is sometimes hard to express... Much of what is best in her is warped on the voyage from within to without.

He’s used to the freedom of neglect; he likes it.

More than this, I believe that the only lastingly important form of writing is writing for children. It is writing that is carried in the reader’s heart for a lifetime; it is writing that speaks to the future.

Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that’s sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.