“This was one of those moments when I realized that my emotional baggage, once a few neatly packed pieces, was now like the Joads' truck, stacked high with old clothes, half a rocking chair, a mule, all barely secured with twine.”

“She was so emotional, on the verge of tears. This was what I'd wanted to prevent with all those quick disappearances, the tangledness of farewells and all the baggage they brought with them. But now, looking at Deb, I realized what else I'd given up: knowing for sure that someone was going to miss me. What happened to goodbye, Michael in Westcott had written on my Ume.com page. I was pretty sure I knew, now. It had been packed away in a box of its own, trying to be forgotten, until I really needed it. Until now.”

“There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.”

“It’s all the same to me—a fucking red flagemblazoned with the words DO NOT BECOME EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED WITH ME, and this bed is barely big enough for my own baggage.”

“look'n for a job?" this is when the truck driver asks joad what he is doing and i think it indecates that this story revolves around a very hard time”

“I don't know if it's the terrible pain from my shouler or the weight of his emotional baggage, but I feel like I'm losing all sense of reality.”