“...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s, somewhere’s, handiwork.”

“Don't live life hiding behind your past. Live for the moment. When you find someone you want to spend forever with, you don't let them go, whether forever turns out to be a day, a year or fifty years”

“I didn't know silence could be that loud.”

“I try to keep the happy memories. If that's what you call selective memories, I'm good with that.”

“I'll be the judge of that, I whispered, pressing my lips into his and, just like that, we were the only people on the dance floor. The only people in the universe. Jude was the sickness I didn't want to be cured of. He was the intoxicant I never wanted to be clear of.”

“It's always amazing how when we're sure we've lost something for good, it winds up finding us.”

“When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves,” he said. “Your whole world ceases to exist and you’re nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours.” He lifted his hand off John’s gravestone and rose. “Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it.”

“I’m a realist,” I said. “Lying and making promises about forever is almost as bad as one day at a time.”

“I could hold you prisoner here for the rest of the day and list everything I love about you, but that’s only half of it,” he explained, turning toward me. “The other half is something I can’t put into words. Something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. It’s something that ties me to you, and you to me. Call it chemistry, call it fate, call it whatever you want. All I know is that I’m yours just as much as you’re mine, Luce. That’s the surest thing I’ve ever known.”

“...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s, somewhere’s, handiwork.”

“Everyone was going crazy, like they’d just witnessed the birth of Jesus and the invention of electricity at the same time. Jude was a rock star, their savior, and they were paying him homage.”