“This is what labels do. They stick. If people think you're MAD, then everything you do, everything you think, will have MAD stamped across it.”

“If I look closely I can see we have the same colour eyes, not me and Simon, but me and the boy who is also me, the boy who I can no longer recognise, with whom I no longer share a single thought, w...”

“I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it.”

“We are selfish, my illness and I. We think only of ourselves. We shape the world around us into messages, into secret whispers spoken only for us.”

“Any punishment is an insult to the crime”

“Once-upon-a-time we buried the memories we didn't want.”

“Youre probably wondering what the heck I mean by The Pillars of Your Life, right? Well this is simple. Its the things that make your life what it is. The things or people that make you, you. Theres...”

“That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult...then come...”

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, an...”

“Zachary smiles, and I wonder if he's felling different. Because standing out here waist deep in Gossimer Lake, next to my best friend, I'm feeling different-light and good and maybe even holy.”

“Don't make me sit through reality.”

“My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal.”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”