Rodman Philbrick

“Shut up!" I say, holding my hands to my ears. "Shut up!"But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist.”

“I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.”

“He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word.""How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day.”

“I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain.”

“What a goon, except it really is funny, me trying to sneeze a hot dog through my nose, and we're both laughing like total morons.”

“Expel the object!" Freak shouts. "Regurgitate, you big moron!" and he gives me another thump and I cough up this yucky mess, but I'm still laughing so hard my nose is running.”

“READING, beaming up into books" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary --"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 167”

“MASSIVES, fat heads who assume that television tells the truth" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary --"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 165”

“LIBRARY, where they keep the truth serum, and the magic carpets" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary --"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 165”

“BOOK, a four-letter word for truth serum" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary --"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 161”

“I could tell you all the medical terminology,' She says. 'But what finally happened is his heart got to big for his body' ”

“His heart was simply to big for his body.”

“Keep marching boys and girls. Keep marching”

“Matter of fact, I watch tons of tube, but I also read tons of books so I can figure out what's true and what's fake, which isn't always easy. Books are like truth serum--if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“Will it hurt?" I ask. "Getting your parts replaced?"Freak doesn't answer for a while and then he says in his stern, smart voice, "Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain."I'm pretty worried about the whole deal, and I go, "But why do you want to be the first? Can't someone else be first? Isn't it dangerous?"Life is dangerous," Freak says.”

“I think in some way it's like that for all of us, living with the ghosts of things that used to be, or never were. We're all of us haunted by yesterday, and we got no choice but to keep marching into our tomorrows.”

“That does it. It can't be true love. Mr. Willow has eyes like a sick kitten. You might love a sick kitten but you don't marry it, you keep it as a pet.”

“I never had a brian till freak came along..”

“Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks. "No, what?" "Blue sky." "You're zoomed." "You ever eat blue sky?""No," I admit. "Try it sometime," she says. "It's apple-flavored.”

“I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for awhile, and that's the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking.”

“Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain.”

“I don't have any of the answers, son. Never did. All I can do is keep asking the questions. Keep trying to make sense of why people do what they do.”

“I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front.”

“The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you”

“Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours”

“It's fun to be amazing, to be the star of the show, to have everyone watching you—even if you have to act like a pig.”

“Dead man has nothin' to lose, nothin' to be feared of. Now I'm back among the living and scared to death about what happens next.—Samuel Reed”

“It all boils down to this: A person has only two options in life, to do something or to do nothing.”

“Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Remembering is just an invention of the mind... It means that if you want to, you can remember anything, whether it happened or not... You don't need a time machine if you can remember.”

“You don't need a time machine if you know how to remember.”

“The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like.”

“You ever notice how long it takes for things to happen when you know they're supposed to happen? My fake Walkman has a built-in alarm, and I set it for two in the morning and wear the headphones to bed, but before you can wake up you have to fall asleep, and I never DO fall asleep because I keep waiting for the alarm to go off.”

“In his opinion, humans were best when miserable, and so he had worked at being miserable his whole life, and in his generous way tried to make as many people miserable as possible.”

“Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain.”

“Remembering is a great invention of the mind.”