That’s the danger of stories,” Mum said. Lydia and I weren’t the only ones thinking about Charley, obviously. “They bring things into the world, and they can’t be put away again.

I don’t care what everyone says, damaging books is worse than damaging people. People heal up. Books never do. The marks always show.

There is not a poem on earth that doesn’t make sense to anyone.

Truth, at least complete truth, isn’t held in words. But there would be no truth at all without them. It lies behind them and lurks around them and shines through them, in glimpses of metaphor, and connotation, and story.

Books don’t hurt people.” “What comes out of them jolly well does.

I thought you said everything in a book has meaning.” “It does! That doesn’t mean it means what you want it to mean!

Today was my first day of high school, and it was not as expected. I thought people would want to learn in high school. Perhaps that was naive.

Nothing stays hidden. Secrets are always found out, and the world is unforgiving.

Every supporting character is the protagonist of his own story.

What you need to understand about protagonists, Sutherland, is that we’re all busy with our own plots. We can’t help it; we’re not used to sharing our stories.