"It feels like nothing else exists outside of that word, this moment. There’s just us. Everything has all lead up to this. To now."

Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty

"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents."

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

"She knew that it was a lie, but she loved it and believed it, like a fairy tale, like a song, like a bedtime story, like a magic trick."

Haley Tanner, Vaclav and Lena

"If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I’m grateful that so many of those moments are nice."

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

"But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that’s life, isn’t it?"

Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

"People always think they know other people, but they don’t. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won’t eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don’t know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel…sad for not reason at all."

Libba Bray, Going Bovine

"There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifting from where you’ve carefully placed them, it shakes your faith, right where you stand."

Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You

"It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible."

Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

"A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself."

Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

"You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet.."

Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

"None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we’re safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is."

David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars

"Hugging. Except there is too much contact between necks, between the softness at the intersection of neck and jaw,not enough friendly vigor, too much of the world falling silent while they hold onto each other."

Haley Tanner, Vaclav and Lena

"I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"There is no going back once you know something, because from then on, you always know it."

Haley Tanner, Vaclav & Lena

"That’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet."

 Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close