“This is where we come," he said. Albie and I look at each other. We?Me and, you know.Albies eyes got wide. I really dont think I want to know about this. I surprised myself. I do, I said. I guess I...”

“Its hard to be different, Scarborough said. And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel...”

“The hole in my heart, I cant even begin to describe. Its hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly theyre not in it anymore. It doesnt matter whose fault it is; that empty ...”

“Why cant I just be bad? I asked, figuring my mom would have no idea what I was talking about.Well, thats easy, sweetie. You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it ...”

“Do you know how you get the urge to clean your room, and its no big deal? But when your mom tells you that you have to clean your room, you don't want to? That's me, anyway.”

“Then I wondered if that was what this was, like a Brokeback Mountain thing. Wed sleep in the same bed for a year, and finally wed do it, but wed never talk about it, ever, and then Ben would get ma...”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”