Quotes from Gabrielle Zevin

I thought you were worried I was going to die," Sam said. "No. You'll never die. And if you ever died, I'd just start the game again," Sadie said. "Sam's dead. Put another quarter in the machine." "Go back to the save point. Keep playing, and we'll win eventually.

He wanted to ask her to work with him at a special place—the occasion of their prospective creative union should be memorable. Even then, he felt that if they made a game, and if the game became what he knew it could be, he would want there to be a story about the day Sam Masur and Sadie Green had decided to work together. He was already imagining Sam-and-Sadie lore, and he didn't even have a definitive idea for a game yet.

Yes, in my mind, she did. I knew your mother so well I could play her part. The same with my own mother and my grandmother and my childhood best friend, Euna, who drowned in the lake by her cousin's house. There are no ghosts, but up here"—she gestured toward her head—"it's a haunted house.

The pain seemed to occupy spaces in his mind that had heretofore been untouched or reserved exclusively for imaginary endeavors.

Sam looked at Sadie, and he thought, This is what time travel is. It's looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time.

She walked through another gate. It occurred to Sadie: She had thought after Ichigo that she would never fail again. She had thought she arrived. But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through. (Until, of course, there wasn't.)

this is the truth of any game—it can only exist at the moment that it is being played.

I imagine people playing. Sometimes, it's one of our games, but sometimes, it's any game. The thing I find profoundly hopeful when I'm feeling despair is to imagine people playing, to believe that no matter how bad the world gets, there will always be players.

Because whether you went to a mediocre public high school in the east (Sam), or a fancy private school in the west (Sadie), the Los Angeles smart-kid circuit was the same.

The one real fight they'd ever had was over David Foster Wallace.

she was moved to write a poem. In certain seasons, We may be nourished by The idea of the carrot More than the carrot itself. Alas, what is the point of writing a poem if there is no one with whom to share it?

No," Sam said. "We've never…It's more than romantic. It's better than romance. It's friendship.

Sadie had invented a game where if Naomi called bedtime before Sadie did for seven nights in a row, Naomi received a prize. Yes, it was manipulative and basically bribery, but it was also effective

You're incredibly gifted, Sam. But it is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it.

Her hair was shorter and more fashionable, he guessed

You aren't just a gamer when you play anymore. You're a builder of worlds, and if you're a builder of worlds, your feelings are not as important as what your gamers are feeling. You must imagine them at all times. There is no artist more empathetic than the game designer.

But my partner died, and now I detest my work, and I have been blue. More than blue really. I have been in the depths of despair. My grandfather, Fred, who I adored, recently died. It begins to seem to me that life is little more than a series of losses, and as you must know by now, I hate losing. And I suppose I came to Friendship because I no longer wished to be in the place I lived and sometimes I no longer wished to even be in my body.

I feel I am not suited for this life," Emily confessed. "I have devoted months to growing a single carrot and I have no time to read.

he was a boy, and also a windowless and doorless tower. She had never found his entrances. She had never kissed him except on the cheek or the forehead. She had, in fourteen years, only intentionally touched him a handful of times, and he had always seemed uncomfortable when she did. And in the end, she had decided she preferred being his creative partner to being his lover.

I think she must have been terribly blue. I think she must have had troubles in her life." "Do you ever get blue?" "Yes, everyone gets blue. But I don't think I could ever get melancholy like that, because I have you.

It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.

Visto che siamo al mondo, stiamo tutti morendo.

Alabaster eyed Emily's still growing stomach. "How many months are you along now?" "Perhaps eleven. I'm not sure. Soon, I shall be able to roll from Upper Foglands to town." "I feel you have lived here longer than eleven months, and you were with child when you arrived. Is it possible your unborn child is waiting for you to be married?" "No, I could never have a child so conventional," Emily said.

What is a game? It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.