“Do you still believe that I am only a dream?"-Alastor”

“That empty sick feeling came over me again. In a big school it was easy to fade into the background, but I didnt know if that would be possible here. I tried not to think about it anymore.”

“What was I was dying for? The sins of the past? The wrongs of the present? Did it even matter?”

“Being dead does have its advantages.-Alastor”

“I bolted upright in my bed, gasping for air and still feeling his touch on my hand. I could feel him watching me. I could feel him waiting for me.”

“Do you like a good ghost story?-Jonah”

“But suppose the endlessly dead were to wake in us some emblem:they might point to the catkins hangingfrom the empty hazel trees, or direct us to the raindescending on black earth in early spring. ...”

“Life is but a dream for the dead.”

“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

“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?”

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to...”

“[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124)”

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. ...”