“He will give his life, for anything he feels has more of a right to live than he. Make no mistake, Elias. He's a Reed. It's what he does.”

“Writing is the voices inside our heads, our minds, the creativity that exists for us to, from nothing, create alternate worlds, manipulate a personality or to introduce a new kind of love, a new kind of hate or pain or happiness or wonder or... anything we want. Through words, we can do, we can be anything we want.”

“Life wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t supposed to be. Eternal beauty could not exist if it were not for the face of a fatal flaw.”

“What is perfect, anyway? The absence of perfection and the existence of human nature in place of something we want to do or we don’t want to do, is an excuse, not an exoneration.”

“It takes two to tango, and if you dance too long, implosion is inevitable.”

“The most important things, the experiences that leave marks on our souls for everyone to see, those marks that reflect our most intense emotions in a glass pane, we will never forget.”

“He just wanted to get through his uninteresting day, so he could cross over into the night, and find his way to the red headed light that brightened the black sky.”

“He kissed her, lay next to her on his bed, pulled her to him. Their foreheads pressed flat against one another, the admiration in their eyes intricately adjoined as one enchanted gaze, he said, "Stay.""Yes," she said. She knew what he meant. Stay with me tonight, sleep in my bed with me tomorrow, but she meant it the other way. Forever.”

“She smiled at him, and he stopped breathing.”

“Elias could not have prepared himself for the moment that he walked into that cottage and laid his eyes on her. Her emerald green eyes--the way they gazed upon him like there were no surroundings or time or sounds to distract her, like he was all that existed.”

“Christian submitted to the roll of his eyes, the churn of his stomach, the break in his knees. He willingly fell out of consciousness, surrendering his heart to the blackness. She was gone. He was gone. Life on earth didn't matter anymore.”