“Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation., and to others, like a pearl.”

“… like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?”

“It doesn’t change what we are to each other. It’s like there’s always been a piece of my soul missing, and it’s inside you, Clary.”

“I don't have pet peeves like some people. I have whole kennels of irritation.”

“You guys looking for my dad? People are always, like, looking for him, and he's never around. Daddy is so not here. And I mean that literally and spiritually.”

“It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.”

“There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.”

“People like to say being gay isn't like skin color, isn't anything physical. They tell us we always have the option of hiding.
But if that's true, why do they always find us?”

“I definitely know people who are shameless enough to give up basic values. I see this kind of art, and when I see it I feel ashamed. In China they treat art as some form of decoration, a self-indulgence. It is pretending to be art. It looks like art. It sells like art. But it is really a piece of shit.”

“Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return.”