All that time I'd spent worrying about why I'm here and how I'm supposed to live had kept me from remembering that Jeremy Pratt will never be back. His people will never have him again. He is Jeremy Pratt who died and stayed dead and will never get a second chance. And even though that hand that spent the last five years holding hers was somehow doing it again, it wasn't Jeremy Pratt's anyone

— John Corey Whaley

And, long after Clark had gone home, Solomon stayed up wondering if everyone falls in love with someone who can't love them back.

— John Corey Whaley

As smart as I am, it took a boy stuck in his house to teach me that sometimes it doesn't matter where you are at all. It only matters who's with you.

— John Corey Whaley

But at home, that same day he'd jumped into the fountain, he'd gotten so anxious, pacing around the living room listening to his parents try to calm him, that he suddenly just lost it completely and slapped his face. He immediately started crying, confused and guilty, looking up at his parents like he had no idea how it happened. And, really, that's the way it always was with the hitting. It would happen so fast, his body shaking to release the tension that built up from all the thoughts swirling through his mind and all the air he was having trouble breathing and all the loud beating of his own heart ringing in his ears. It had to get out and that was the path it chose. Slap. Instant relief.

— John Corey Whaley

But at that moment I understood what they say about nostalgia, that no matter if you're thinking of something good or bad, it always leaves you a little emptier afterward.

— John Corey Whaley

But she believed there was a thin line between accepting one's fears and giving in to them altogether.

— John Corey Whaley

Death can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up at night. But we’ve also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our friends and family.

— John Corey Whaley

— Do they know? That you're gay?— Why waste their time with it? It's not like it'll ever be an issue anyway.— Yeah, but, it's who you are, right?— I guess so, — he said. — I don't really know how to be any way else.— When did you know?— I was twelve, maybe. Something I just knew one day, even though I hadn't known it the day before.— So it's like that, huh? A feeling? Not just being into other dudes?— Oh no, it's that too. Of course, it's that. But it's more, I think. Not so much a feeling as a fact, like having blue eyes or brown hair. It's just maybe something you don't discover until you're ready to understand it better.— Like being straight, — she said. Only we don't have to deal with all that closet bullshit.— Bingo, — he said.

— John Corey Whaley

Dr. Webb says that life is so full of complications and confusion that humans oftentimes find it hard to cope. This leads to people throwing themselves in front of trains and spending all their money and not speaking to their relatives and never going home for Christmas and never eating anything with chocolate in it. Life, he says, doesn't have to be so bad all the time. We don't have to be so anxious about everything. We can just be. Furthermore, we can get up, anticipate that the day will probably have a few good moments and a few bad ones, and then just deal with it. Take it all in and deal as best as we can.

— John Corey Whaley

Dr. Webb says that losing a sibling is oftentimes much harder for a person than losing any other member of the family. "A sibling represents a person's past, present, and future," he says. "Spouses have each other, and even when one eventually dies, they have memories of a time when they existed before that other person and can more readily imagine a life without them. Likewise, parents may have other children to be concerned with--a future to protect for them. To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.

— John Corey Whaley