“You want to set this one down so you can take a breath, and keep reading–all at the same time.”

Habit is the best thing for you if you’re trying to write prose.

I think fiction writers write what they do because no one else has written it and they want to read it.

This is much more than your typical thriller. Tim Johnston has written a book that makes Gone Girl seem gimmicky . . . Johnston is an excellent writer.

You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you.

Thus, that one can find no place to walk through the breadth of the earth is not because the earth is not tranquil but because the danger to every step of the traveler lies generally with words.

Frank stared at him. “Unfair? You can breathe underwater and blow up glaciers and summon freaking hurricanes-and it’s unfair that I can be an elephant?” Percy considered. “Okay. I guess you got a point. But the next time I say you’re totally beast-” “Just shut up,” Frank said. “Please.” Percy cracked a smile.

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual.

I couldn’t look at you and breath at the same time.

Patch backed me into a tree and kissed me, hard. I regained my breath. “boys take not everywhere: that was a kiss.

Dont panic, i thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. You mean you can feel happy or sad or desire. A barely-there smile.

I think,” Tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, “that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live.