Maybe nobody got a happy ending in the end. Maybe all happiness could ever hope to be was a tiny interruption from sorrow.

I wanted to grab onto him like a life preserver in an empty ocean.

Ten years I’d simmered in my own self-righteousness, holding my grudge against her as if the only way to win was to stay mad the longest.

Choose joy on purpose.

I gave you Jake because you’re headstrong and accident prone, and he’s our medic and I trust him to patch you up. I gave you Jake because you’re the best map reader we’ve got, and he’s damn near blind. And I gave you Jake because you absolutely never believe in yourself – and he finds a way to believe in you every damn day.

Wasn’t that what love was, after all? Saying yes – not just when it was easy, but also when it was hard?

It’s not the easy moments that define who we are. It’s the hard ones.

Well, for example, happy people are more likely to register joy than unhappy people. So if you take two people who have experienced a day of, say, fifty percent good things and fifty percent bad things, an unhappy person would remember more of the bad.

It’s a deliberate kind of joy. It’s a conscious kind of joy. It’s joy on purpose.” Duncan squinted like he really wasn’t sold. “In clown socks and a tutu.” “I’m telling you. I know all about darkness. That’s why I am so hell-bent, every damn day, on looking for the light.

Love makes you better because it’s hard. Taking risks makes you better because it’s terrifying. That’s how it works. You’ll never get anything that matters without earning it. And even what you get” – she lifted her chin in defiance – “you won’t get to keep. Joy is fleeting. Nothing lasts. That’s exactly what courage.