Hollow City

Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.

Just because they knew it was lost didn’t mean they knew how to let it go.

But you can't feel bad every second, I wanted to tell her. Laughing doesn’t make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you've forgotten. It just means you're human.

Some truths are expressed best in the form of myth.

I liked this idea: that peculiarness wasn't a deficiency, but an abundance; that it wasn't we who lacked something normals had, but they who lacked peculiarness. That we were more, not less.

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret. Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder.

What I believe is that when it comes to big things in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You are here for a reason -- and it's not to fail and die.

Do you ever find yourself climbing into an open grave during a bombing raid..and wish you'd just stayed in bed?

The real purpose of money is to manipulate others and make them feel lesser than you.

I was too dazed to follow right away, because there was something new happening, a wheel inside my heart I’d never noticed before, and it was spinning so fast it made me dizzy. And the farther away she got, the faster it spun, like there was an invisible cord unreeling from it that stretched between us, and if she went too far it would snap - and kill me. I wondered if this strange, sweet pain was love.

A song and a smile from someone I cared about could be enough to distract me from all that darkness, if only for a little while.

That’s because the true purpose of money is to manipulate others and make them feel lesser than you.” “I’m not entirely sure about that,” Emma said. “Only kidding!” said Horace. “It’s to buy clothes, of course.

It's as if the more he cares about someone, the less he can see. Emotion clouds his vision.

Destiny is for people in books about magical swords.

Which was just well: goodbyes had never been my strong suit anyway, and lately my life had felt like an unbroken series of them. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Bombs are falling and we're reading stories, I thought. I have entered the realm of the insane. -Jacob

Then he got quiet, lost in memories of a better time.

I was here for a reason. There was something I was meant not simply to be, but to do- and it wasn't to run or hide or give up the minute things seemed terrifying and impossible.

We aren’t so different. Outcasts and wanderers all—souls clinging to the margins of the world.

I wanted to thank you," I said. She wrinkled her nose and squinted like I'd said something funny. "Thank me for what?" she said. "You give me strength I didn't know I had,"; I said. "You make me better.

I hope I’ll be able to come home, someday. But there are things I need to do first. I just want you to know I love you and Mom, and I’m not doing any of this to hurt you.” “We love you, too, Jake, and if it’s drugs, or whatever it is, we don’t care. We’ll get you right again. Like I said, you’re confused.” “No, Dad. I’m peculiar.

You may choose to live in a world of fantasy if you like, my dear, but I am a realist.

Because from the day I met her I'd known I wanted to be part of any world she belonged to. Did that make me crazy? Or was my heart too easily conquered?

Laughing doesn’t make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn’t mean you don’t care, or that you’ve forgotten. It just means you’re human.

It's not about destiny but i do think there's balance in the world and forces we don't understand intervene to tip the scales the right way.

Maybe I could use a little metal on the inside, I thought. If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now? Easy—I’d be at home, medicating myself into a monotone. Drowning my sorrows in video games. Working shifts at Smart Aid. Dying inside, day by day, from regret.

It occurred to me that the business of surviving precluded a great many things, exploring and falling in love not least among them.

Pointing into the ice, she said, “See that potted plant on the desk in there?” I saw. Nodded. “It’s green now, preserved by the ice. But inside it’s dead. And the moment that ice melts, it’ll turn brown and wither into mush.” She locked eyes with me. “I’m like that plant.