When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can’t describe.”
“We all felt it,” Nick said.
“You may have felt it, but I caused it.” Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. “Something changed out there. I don’t know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn’t deserve what I did to him—and the powers that be know that I did it.” Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.
“What if,” said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, “what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?”
Clarence chuckled at the thought. “I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me.”
“But you do think that something changed. . . .”
“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.”
“What if it’s neither?” suggested Nick. “What if we get to make it one or the other?

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.

I remember the first time I saw you,” Allie said.
“I thought you smelled me first.”
“Right,” said Allie. “The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn’t it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn’t that funny?”
“Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!”
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
“Don’t forget me,” Nick said. “No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there’s nobody there, maybe it’ll be me.”
“I’ll write to you,” said Allie, and Nick laughed. “No really. I’ll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost.”
“And,” added Nick, “it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!”
Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I’ll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye at all.
Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to Memphis?” he said. “You’d better hit the road…. Jack.” Then he chuckled by his own joke, and walked off.

I don't know what happens to our consciousness when we're unwound," says Connor. "I don't even know when that consciousness starts. But I do know this." He pauses to make sure all of them are listening. "We have a right to our lives!"
The kids go wild.
"We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!"
The cheers reach fever pitch.
"We deserve a world where both those things are possible— and it's our job to help make that world.

You look spectacluar, Cam.' She smoothes out his shirt and straightens his tie. 'You look like the shining star you are!'
'Let's hope I don't give birth to complex elements.'
She looks at him quizzically.
'Supernova,' he says. 'If I'm a shining star, let's hope I don't blow up.