How we cite our quotes: (Daysbefore.Paragraph) and (daysafter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"But a lot of times, people die how they live. And so last words tell me a lot about who people were, and why they became the sort of people biographies get written about. Does that make sense?" (thelastday.45)
This is what makes the fact that Miles never knows Alaska's last words so devastating—he believes that last words offer insight into life. He wants to truly know Alaska, and arguably he never really does because of both circumstances and the fact that she doesn't allow it to happen.
Quote #5
The Colonel and I are walking back to our dorm room in silence. I am staring at the ground beneath me. I cannot stop thinking that she is dead, and I cannot stop thinking that she cannot possibly be dead. People do not just die. (thedayafter.42)
But they do, and Miles knows they do. What Miles is experiencing here is what many people who have loved ones die experience: a sense of disbelief that death could touch his life. And Miles realizes this later on—he acknowledges that he and other teenagers are indestructible in his final essay for the Old Man because their spirits live on. So then we have to wonder whether the statement "people do not just die" is true because we question what death really is and means.
Quote #6
I couldn't believe what I had done to him, his eyes glittering green like Alaska's but sunk deep into dark sockets, like a green-eyed, still-breathing ghost, and don't no don't don't die, Alaska. Don't die. (6after.11)
The death Miles is referring to here is physical, yes, but also relates much more to the living than to Alaska. The guilt Miles feels regarding his role in her death would dissipate if only Alaska were alive, and here we see death tied to the suffering of the living.