"I think people are clocking me as gay, maybe? Could it be the rainbow shoelaces? Or the fact that I'm incapable of going five minutes without mentioning my boyfriend?? Anyway, I like it. It's refreshing!" (10)

"So here's the deal: I know four-letter L words scare you (which, not gonna lie, is a BOLD stance coming from a girl whose name is literally a four-letter L word). But the truth is, I don't need you to declare a single thing, because it's written all over your face. Those are the facts. You come with subtitles, and you don't even realize it." (11)

"I always wanted to stumble into someone like you." (17)

"But I kept thinking about last year, and the year before that, and how being near you was this everyday thing I took completely for granted. And we don't get to go back. We don't get to do high school again. And yeah, I knew that intellectually, but I don't think I fully processed it until right now. I guess being on a literal express train away from you made it really sink in." (18)

"I should just turn in my gay card. I don't even deserve to drink iced coffee at this point." (42)

"It just made me really happy, in the same way your rainbow shoelaces make me happy. I love watching you try on this part of yourself. You don't have to give up a single day of iced coffee, Simon, I promise." (44)

"Well, it's the last day of your first year of adulthood (soon to be the first day of the last year of your teens— is your head spinning yet?) I can't believe how long I've known you. I can't believe how recently I met you. My brain keeps scrolling back through all our Novembers, and I don't know how you do it, Simon, but you make memories feel like time travel. Everything uploads in high-definition when it comes to you." (50)

"When we say we want to freeze time, what we mean is that we want to control our memories. We want to choose which moments we'll keep forever. We want to guarantee the best ones won't slip away from us somehow. So when something beautiful happens, there's this. impulse to press pause and save the game. We want to make sure we can find our way back to that moment." (82)