The Night Burns Bright

Lucien was beginning to see that people, even adults, could be more than just themselves, that their words and feelings could depend on where and when they appeared.

untouchable and unknowable until the moment they were amassed, and any reality,

This was one of his favorite aspects of books: how these little black squiggles could create so much behind his eyes.

But he couldn't think of it that way. Evie and Samantha weren't dead. They were just somewhere else. Somewhere he couldn't go. What was the difference between that and death?

[...] believe it or not [...] sometimes we think we are the weakest people, the most alone, the most crushed, but we aren’t. We never are.

On one hand, it’s empty, vacant, nothing—on the other, well, it’s like staring into the sun. I’m blinded. There’s so much, and I’m just bent over and crouching there, in the light.

We keep the memory, but the memory isn’t only us. We aren’t just an accumulation of bad memories.

these adults, they’re as messed up as we are. They’re just older.

Lucien, you’re great and all, really, don’t change, but you gotta understand—these adults, they’re as messed up as we are. They’re just older.

It was bound to the passage of time, to the looming realization that there were moments in his life that could not be reclaimed, that were imprisoned solely in memory. He would not relive them.