“You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”

“She wasn't actually speaking to me, she was singing a kind of lullaby of talk. But, eventually, the music stopped. ”

“Outside the hospital, a young girl who was selling small bouquets of daffodils, their green stems tied with lavender ribbons. I watched as my mother bought out the girl's whole stock. Nurse Eliot, ...”

“There were also the Masters of Arcane Knowledge. Everyone begrudged their presence among the gifteds. These were the kids that could break down an engine and build it back again - no diagrams or in...”

“Oh sweetheart, do you really think if youseal it up, that the pain's gonna go away?”

“I could not imagine my youngest standing above her soiled grandmother in the wing chair and saying, "mother, let's kill her. "That's the only choice.”

“Those for whom things came easily usually made less of an effort, not more.”

“Soon she noted that teachers in subjects besides gym didn't report her if she cut. They were happy not to have her there: her intelligence made her a problem. It demanded attention and rushed their...”

“We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For o...”

“The teachers complain that the students today are all lazy, ignorant, and stupid. But the truth is that you're smarter than they are. You're not even old enough to drive and you already know that n...”

“I told her about school and how I sat on a wall there and felt stories and words move through me ...”