“The feeling of not being understood and of not understanding the world is no mere accompaniment of first passion, but its sole non-accidental cause. And the passion itself is a panic-stricken flight in which being together with the other means only a doubled solitude.”

“That was the coolest thing ever.” Eena smiled at the fact that she’d been lucky enough to touch the wings of a real crioness. “That was highly unusual. I can’t believe they came right up to us—to you.” “They were hungry, I’m sure.” “Still, crioness are cautious. They always avoid people. To let you touch him like it did…..” She grinned with pure satisfaction. “Wild huh? Derian’s not going to believe me when I tell him.” Eena cocked her head when Ian laughed out loud. “What?” she asked, a note of offense in her voice. “Of course Derian will believe you. When does anything ever happen to you that isn’t unreal?” Knowing he was right, she shoved him off the log anyway.”

“Hysterical optimism will prevail until the world again admits the existence of tragedy, and it cannot admit the existence of tragedy until it again distinguishes between good and evil. . . Hysterical optimism as a sin against knowledge.”

“When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him.”

“Every time he left, I shattered apart.”

“You are my new hero. Seriously, I might actually be in love with you now. Would it be awkward if we made out?”

“She wondered If I had woken up, would I have smelled his sadness, his desperation, and his detachment? His death, her breath. He told her once, she remembers, these two words have no other rhyme but each other. If she could go back, she thinks -- She would open her eyes, instead of her heart.”

“She was transparent, like a watercolor. As if she were about to dissolve in sound, in tones not yet created.”