It is lucky, she thinks, that we don't feel all the love inside us every moment. We couldn't breathe or walk or eat. It is lucky that it just flares … - Gabrielle Zevin

Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.

I think the reason I liked gaming so much as a subject was because it has all the subjects in it—it’s a grand subject.

Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men. This observation insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads books with classically romantic heroes. She does not mind the occasional novel with a romantic hero but her reading taste are far more varied than that. Furthermore, she adores Humbert Humbert as a character while accepting the fact that she wouldn't really want him for a life partner, a boyfriend, or even a casual acquaintance. She feels the same way about Holden Caulfield, and Misters Rochester and Darcy.