Wendelin Van Draanen

"Yeah, right. I know what's really going on: Heather's hired you to kill me, hasn't she?" "Sammy!" "Why else would you catapult me through the air and feed me to a man-eating cot?"

"My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is the other person's eyes. They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast while the rest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away."

"What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn't be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet—only science would put them on the same tree."

"I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were in love with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So she talks too much, so she's too enthused about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question answered, and get out. Stand up to her, for cryin' out loud!”"

"“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss….” He turned to me. “But every once in a while you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.”"

"...something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living."

"I'd never looked at our house, or even our side of the street, and said, Oh! I wish we lived in the new development—those houses are so much newer, so much better! This is where I'd grown up. This was my home."

"“There's nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive.”"

"“It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice, but the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.”"

"I told about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. “It's that way with people, too,” he said, “only with people it's sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts.”"