“People had a choice. They could continue wandering through the endless darkness, and absence of everything they loved, and endless void of disappointment and loneliness...

i like to think of it as a rainbow of failed ideas. some of these terrible ideas collapsed on themselves and disappeared. some of these terrible ideas interacted with each other in any number of different ways. and some of these terrible ideas swallowed other, less terrible ideas whole.

He tells her how he worries that none of it means anything. That none of it is important. That who he is, or who he thinks he is, is just a collection of references to other people’s art and he is so focused on story and meaning and structure that he wants his world to have all of it neatly laid out and it never, ever does and he fears it never will.

“Be brave,” she says. “Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.

A lot of people can smile when things go wrong, but it takes a special person to get everyone else to smile with them.

“[people] will list the things they have to be thankful for, as if their life were an addition problem whose positive sum means nothing can be wrong.”

I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.

People’s personalities took up space, he sometimes thought. When they were trapped in a house or a job or school together, they rubbed up against each other, squeaked like balloons, and made sparks. Ryan’s parents both had large, gleaming, hot-air-balloon personalities. Sometimes it was hard to fit them into the same house, and Ryan had learned the art of suddenly making himself take up less space, demand less, so that his parents were not chafing against each other so much.