(J)ust because your version of normal isn't the same as someone else's version doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.

Bruno: "Why do you wear pajamas all day?" Shmuel: "The soldiers. They took all our clothes away." Bruno: "My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away."

...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.

You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life.

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.

Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

I think i'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.

Their lost voices must continue to be heard.

Jewels can be replaced, cousin. Independence, once lost, cannot.

I don’t regret meeting Jon. I knew that God put us together early. I knew he was my destiny, but sometimes as if I was a fisherman I wanted to throw back my destiny and start again

So when I feel most lost I choose to remember those things that help me survive. I choose love.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.

I could be working 300 hours a week. I just say no. The power of slow is the power of no. I can’t go to every party I get invited to. I can’t do every work thing.

The term bisexual has ended up as the ugly stepchild of sexuality, in both name and meaning. Its fate is symptomatic of the bisexual's own lot in life: to be as common as can be, but unacknowledged.

Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.

We get used to things, and we like reading the way we're used to reading.

Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today's problems are a result of yesterday's solutions.

I write what I write.