“The sky was low and broody, but from here, near the treeline, you could see the forest rolling down into the valley, the lake tucked away like a pocket mirror.”

“Punk had picked the locks, sluiced out into the grid.”

“Some people think the real them is whoever they are when they're not around other people.”

“It's like Charlie's dreamed everything he lived through here.”

“William loathed his family,' Mercer said. 'With cause.”

“As ever in the family Goodman, someone would have to swallow feelings here, and it was easier that it be Mercer.”

“Hed spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen.William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the ...”

“Even though this world is narrow, it is wide... to those who understand. This world isn't the only one.”

“Her vision of the world under the water represented a beautiful stillness, a version of heaven. It was the lost city of Lena, her alternate universe, the life she yearned for but didn't get to have.”

“I think you still love me, but we cant escape the fact that Im not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So Im not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. Im not angry, eithe...”

“I will not try to convince you to love me, to respect me, to commit to me. I deserve better than that; I AM BETTER THAN THAT...Goodbye.”

“Sometimes you want to say, I love you, butYet the but takes away the I love you. In love their are no buts or ifs or when. Its just there, and always. No beginning, no end. Its the condition-less s...”

“...the way we ended things was not uncommon for kids like us. She said we'd lost enough in our short lives to want to cauterize our wounds before they happened. We burned our connection closed befo...”

“Sometimes, most times, when I think back to the people that I loved, the person that I was... I feel like I'm reading the pages of a book written about someone else's life.I can't believe that was ...”