Gabrielle Zevin

“All of these teeth had once been in real, live people. They had talked and smiled and eaten and sang and cursed and prayed. They had brushed and flossed and died. In English class, we read poems about death, but here, right in front of me was a poem about death too.”

“It's a tragic fact to die in an accident”

“And then, despite the fact that A. J. does not believe in God, he closes his eyes and thanks whomever, the higher power, with all his porcupine heart.”

“There's a pleasure to loving someone even when you know there's no chance in them loving you back. The pain I felt let me know I was still alive.”

“There's a difference between being alive and living.”

“A life isn't measured in hours and minutes. It's the quality, not the length.”

“But I loved those books or at least that first one. And I felt somewhere down deep inside him the person who wrote it must be there. That you couldn't write such beautiful things and have such an ugly heart. But that is the truth. He was a beautiful writer and a terrible person.”

“But now, at this moment, you can't hook your boat to mine, 'cause I'm liable to sink us both. (222)”

“I think you can do a lot, like describing people with their physical characteristics, things like that, but to me, I've always found it to be a much more informative question to ask somebody what they read.”

“His heart is too full, and no words to release it.”

“I do not believe in God. I have no religion. But this to me is as close to a church as I have known in this life. It is a holy place. With bookstores like this, I feel confident in saying that there will be a book business for a very long time.”