“If you love me, Henry, you dont love me in a way I understand.”

“This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.”

“We pull our boots on with both handsbut we can't punch ourselves awake and all I can do is stand on the curb and say Sorryabout the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.I couldn't get the boy to...”

“You're trying not to tell him you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and yo...”

“But damn if there isn't anything sexier than a slender boy with a handgun, a fast car, a bottle of pills.”

“Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next?”

“It's like I'm thirteen again and he's my crush. All I'm aware of in this entire roomful of people is him. Where he is, what he's doing, who he's talking to.”

“Can't you just like a girl who likes you back?''None of them likes me back. I may as well like the one I really want.”

“She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying.”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”