“People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline...The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.”

“People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline...The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.”

“they'd become unaccustomed to the brightness of their own city, and, faced with it now in all its intensity, they cupped their hands over their eyes as if staring into the sun.”

“Maybe the answer to all of his problems was nothing more than a darkened sky and a glittering city, a lofty perch above the world below. It seemed entirely possible that it was all just a matter of setting and location, and Peter wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.”

“There are certain things in life that you'll be forgiven for, no matter how thoughtless or stupid or reckless, but if you do that same thing twice, you're on your own.”

“You could tell a lot about someone by the way they carried a secret-by how safe they kept it, how soon they told, the way they acted when they were trying to keep it from spilling out.”

“I think you have to be more of a believer for these things to work," he said, wiping some ice cream from his face. "How are you supposed to find what you're looking for if you're not convinced it's even out there?”

“But a small part of him also knew that the reason he'd never ventured anywhere was because of the worry that the reality of the world wouldn't match up to his dreams.”

“Somehow he'd become the one constant in this whole uneven chapter in her life, & the idea that could change was unsettling.”

“Happy Graduation," he said."Now go get her.”

“This," I say softly, "is going to change everything."I don't mean it the way I usually do.I don't mean that change is hard or scary, though it's definitely both.I mean only to say this: that sometimes, through good luck or bad, through curses or fate, the world cracks itself open, and afterward nothing will ever be the same.All I mean is that this seems like one of those times.”

“We have all sorts of words that could describe us. But we get to choose which ones are most important.”