“I loved the way he kissed me, as if he had to, as if he’d go crazy if he didn’t and had nearly waited too”

“People fell in love, and lost, and moved on. He didn’t know why he couldn’t. He didn’t know why he didn’t even want to. All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count.”

“Suddenly, I wondered what the hell was going on. Ramón had been the smartest and most capable guy in our whole grade in “thinking” and “figuring” out things, and he’d been considered dumb, too. And now Gus, he was also the smartest guy of all of us during recess and he just said that he’d been flunked before. This didn’t make any damn—I mean, blessed—sense to me at all! The smartest kids I knew were all considered stupid.”

“He’s dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if he’d be happy to lie there gazing at me forever.”

“For tho' I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.”

“His kisses were gifts. He kissed with everything he had, with power and passion and hunger and love. He held nothing back, giving everything, exposing everything.”

“I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon”

“He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.”

“He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.”

“Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't,
but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. That's some catch, that catch-22.”