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“Because once that machine went off, it meant he really was gone.”
“You all right?” I nodded. “I’m okay.” “Okay is enough for now,” she said. “What do you mean?” “We get better,” she said. “It takes a long time and there’s a whole lot of scars, but we get better. And now I’m going in to get that cup of tea.”
You could feel the whole crowd switch from cotton candy and apple cider to something a lot more dangerous.
“It was just one tree,” said Henry. “A whining excuse that echoes through Western history to justify thoughtless and shortsighted abuses of the natural world. It was just one dodo. It was just one passenger pigeon. It was just one buffalo. It was just one ivory-billed woodpecker. It is just one polar bear. It is just one humpback whale. Every species is always ‘just one’—until we get to the last one, and then it becomes The One.” He sighed. “I don’t mean to say that Acer saccharum is in danger of extinction. I do mean to say that the mindset you have shown is terrible. Do you understand?”
I was sweating. That’s what going to the principal’s office does to you. Every time.
“Courage is shown in what we do, not in what we’re feeling. I think you showed real courage.”
I’ve been thinking about how everything can change in one millimillionth of a second. And maybe about what that means. I mean, if we can be going along, minding our own business, and something happens that makes everything different, who can ever be sure that tomorrow, things won’t be horrible? 50 Or maybe I should think about it this way: because things can change so quickly, maybe things can suddenly turn out good. 72
“It’s a beautiful piece of land, Hercules. I wonder if you’ve seen it so often that you hardly even notice that anymore.” “I notice,” I said.
He turned and looked at me. “I bet you do,” he said. “I bet you notice everything. I bet you notice everything because—” “Because things change.”
“Exactly right. Thing...
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you can’t do everything by yourself. 91
And maybe what you start to learn is that even when you miss someone who is gone—I mean, really really miss them—that doesn’t mean that everyone is gone. And it doesn’t mean that the ones you miss have been replaced. But it does mean that you’re not alone. And that’s something, right? 228
“Sometimes you need a disaster to teach you something new about life.”
I don’t know what happiness beyond belief would feel like. I can imagine, I guess, but I’m not sure what it would feel like. What I am sure of is this: Who would not want to give someone else happiness beyond belief? 193
“Because maybe sometimes,” I said, “you can get something back even when you think it’s lost.”
You can’t fix everything. But some things you can fix. And when you can fix them, you should. And when you can’t—I don’t know what you do when you can’t. 218
What do you do when you can’t fix something that has happened? Since you’re talking to a marine here, I will be honest with you: Here’s the first rule: Bad things happen that you can’t fix. Here’s the second rule: You have to live with the first rule. Here’s the third rule: The first two rules stink.
He knows and she knows and she knows that he knows and he knows that she knows and they both know that stinks. Being without someone stinks. Feeling like you might lose each other really stinks. Now they have to find the right way to say they know all that to each other.
You have someone who loves you, and you’re going to let that get away? Really? Really?”
Sometimes you lose what you love because something happens and you can’t stop it. We know that. But you can stop it this time. You can. You know you can. And if you don’t, then you’re a jerkface.”
you’ve been fighting a whole lot of monsters this year, monsters much more real than any the mythical Hercules fought. And you’ve been fighting stuff that’s come at you out of the blue. And none of it is fair, and none of it is right, and none of it is anything you’ve deserved. That’s the world, Beal. But you haven’t crumbled, have you? And you haven’t disappeared. You’re still here. And the truth is, no matter what happened with your parents, and no matter what happens with Elly, you’re still going to be here.”
He handed me the medal. “What’s this for?”
“For still being here. Put it in ...
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It’s a whole lot better to be not alone.
Maybe, the stuff we hold up, we don’t have to hold up by ourselves all the time. Maybe sometimes we can let someone else hold it up too. Maybe that’s how we can get by. Maybe that’s how we can do a whole lot better than just get by.
You think your teachers lifted crab apple trees all Sunday for the blisters? They did it in gratitude for what you and your brother have done for the Academy, and in support of you especially, because you are our student.
We are here to help you carry the sky when you have to, and we are here to help you put it down when you need to. Why else would anyone ever become a teacher?
But hell is like a storm, you know. You can’t predict everything it’s going to do.
Being with Elly was like walking out into the sunshine after a long, long night. It was like being more grateful than angry.
It was like getting something back that you thought was gone. It was like Elijah and Elias building barns for each other.
was like remembering everything that was good—and knowing you were going to remember all that forever. It was like the morning sun on the Dune with Mindy and Pirate Cat and Achilles and Viola. It was like all of that. It was all of that. Elly and I decided it would always be all of that.
“It’s a tough world, Sugimoto,” said Lieutenant Colonel Hupfer. It is. But like I said, I’m still here. And I have a lot more to do. That’s what I really wanted to tell you.
