“One day, as Sarita tended to the wash, Gemma played in the garden. She was a knight, you see, with a sword fashioned out of wood. Most formidable, she was, though I didn't quite know how formidable...”

“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”

“I run after her, not really giving chase. Im running because I can, because I must.Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.”

“I know because I read...Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.”

“To those who will see, the world waits.”

“I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all.”

“Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked. "Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is...”

“Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is mean...”

“Michael, some people are just confused about their sexuality, trying to come to terms with it. There are others who are bisexual too; it doesnt mean she was trying to deceive you. She must have jus...”

“Youth, it appeared, was full of illusions as to how much sexual energy two people might have to spare while hiking forty or so kilometers a day, concussed, stunned, diseased, on poor food and littl...”