Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close says

"I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone."

"Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future."

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live."

"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."

"There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me."

"I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me."

"So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!"

"What did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think. I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it."

"Why I'm Not Where You Are"

"I did not need to know if he could love me.
I needed to know if he could need me."

"We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it"

"I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?"

"I turned on the radio and found a station playing "Hey Jude." It was true, I didn't want to make it bad. I wanted to make it better. It's just that I didn't know how."