It Was A Way Of Recognizing Places

Everything He'd Done With Regard To Her In The Last Three Years Had Been Calculated To Foreclose The Intensely Personal Sort Of Talks They'd Had When He Was Younger: To Get Her To Shut Up, To Train Her To Contain Herself, To Make Her Stop Pestering Him With Her Overfull Heart And Her Uncensored Self. And Now That The Training Was Complete And She Was Obediently Trivial With Him, He Felt Bereft Of Her And Wanted To Undo It.

The World Was Ending Then, It's Ending Still, And I'm Happy To Belong To It Again.

I Wanted All Of Her And Resented Other Boys For Wanting Any Part Of Her.

[t]hat I Could Find Company And Consolation And Hope In An Object Pulled Almost At Random From A Bookshelf--felt Akin To An Instance Of Religious Grace.

What He'd Never Understood About Men In His Position, In All The Books He'd Read And Movies He'd Seen About Them, Was Clearer To Him Now: You Couldn't Keep Expecting Wholehearted Love Without, At Some Point, Requiting It. There Was No Credit To Be Earned For Simply Being Good.