“I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting i...”

“I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect.”

“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie. ”

“Now death is uncool, old-fashioned. To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise sp...”

“We think of mortality so little these days...I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,As you are now so ...”

“So what are you thinking?" I asked. I meant about the case, obviously, but Cassie was in a giddy mood--she generates more energy than most people, and she'd been sitting indoors most of the day. "W...”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”