"I've never seen grief like it. Grief like that, it's like an animal. She's not eating. She's not sleeping. She's whimpering. She's sluggish. She's not herself."

"The world is full of countries that have only come into existence in the last couple of hundred years, or even in the last few decades, while changes to borders are happening every day."

"Averages might mean something to bureaucrats and engineers, but the sea had no struck with statistics: it was a succession of unpredictable circumstances and extremes."

"I used to sleep on the floor next to the bed, because I believed that I didn't even deserve a bed to sleep in. And then, one morning, a cockroach crawled onto my leg. I looked at it, and suddenly I awoke from a kind of hypnotic trance in which I had been all my life."

"Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are."

"I elbow my way through the mass of people to get to my locker because there's something immensely satisfying about the toughest part of my arm connecting with the softest part of everyone else."

"Or deep down, maybe there was more. Maybe I wanted someone to figure out who wrote the note and secretly come to my rescue.Maybe. I don’t know. But I was careful never to give myself away."

"I regret...' Tobias tilts his head, and sighs. 'I regret my choice.'What Choice?', and... I felt like maybe I could make something more of my decision.'."