Ransom Riggs

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.

He was cross-examining my subconscious .

anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After.

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____ 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.

By morning I was worn out. My limbs felt heavy as wood, my head cottony. I might've felt better if I hadn't slept at all.

He closed the laptop. A sure sign I was about to receive his full attention.

...so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.

She had a heart the size of France and the lucky few whom she loved, she loved with every square inch of it. But it's size made it dangerous.

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss.

The day that lay before (was) full of infinite possibilities, though in a million superficial ways it was identical to the day before.

When I was a kid, Granpa Portman's fantastic stories meant it was possible to live a magical life. Even after I stopped believing them, there was still something magical about my grandfather. To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and to have your life made unrecognised by it, to come out of all that the honorable and good and brave person I knew him to be - THAT was magical.

I'll never understand ninety-nine percent of humanity. - Enoch

Maybe," she said. "Maybe. But now you're making promises you might not be able to keep, and that's how people in love get very badly hurt.

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.

I didn__ know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.

She moved to pinch me again but I blocked her hand. I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting.

Their memory was something tangible and heavy, and I would carry it with me.

I slammed out of the Priest Hole and started walking, heading nowhere in particular. Sometimes you just need to go through a door.