Pandemonium (Delirium, #2)

by Lauren Oliver

“There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next.”

“If you’re smart, you care. And if you care, you love.”

But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.

In a world without love, this is what people are to each other: values, benefits, and liabilities, numbers and data. We weigh, we quantify, we measure, and the soul is ground to dust.

If you want something, if you take it for your own, you’ll always be taking it from someone else. That’s a rule too. And something must die so that others can live.”

I didn’t realize then what a privilege that was: to be bored with your best friend; to have time to waste.

I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other’s wounds; they repair the broken skin.