La Crosse County Library

“Gwen smiles. “Do you know what part of ‘If—’ is actually relevant right now? To this moment? ‘If you can make one heap of all your winnings / And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, / And lose, and start again at your beginnings / And never breathe a word about your loss.’ ” She must be messing with me. Surely she knows she’s just described my greatest fear. But no, I can tell from the look on her face that she sincerely thinks that I’m that brave, that I am doing this because I am okay with losing big. Not because I am terrified of losing at all. And it stuns me silent, for a moment: just how vast the gap is between who I am and how people see me.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto Is Back

“Because he was always the sort of person who stood in the way, the sort who protected, the sort who ran. He always thought he was the bad guy in all stories, the real heroes always do, that’s why stories about boys like him never end with them growing old.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners

“We fool ourselves that we can protect the people we love, because if we accepted the truth we’d never let them out of our sight.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners

“I see her every night,” Teddy says. “She sleeps under my bed so I can hear her singing.”
― Jason Rekulak, Hidden Pictures