“Do you think we'll get married one day?" I said."To each other?" Charlie asked."No, silly. I mean to other people." (But really, I'd meant to each other.)”

“Maybe if I hadn’t been so hell-bent on not becoming my parents, I could have saved Charlie. Maybe I would have been his girlfriend. Maybe we could have gotten married and been happy, regardless of who our parents were and what they did to each other.”

“Charlie turned to me. "Want some?"I said, "Nah." What I meant was: Who are you?”

“He said, “Charlie isn’t like us, you know?” and I knew what he meant, but somehow it was that not-like-us that made me love Charlie more.”

“Most people don't think past themselves. I know that. But I want Vera to see other people. To respect other people. To realize that the whole world is not here for her. I want her to see her duty to the world, not the other way around.”

“I mean, I ignore plenty of stuff, like school spirit days and the dirty looks I get from the Detentionheads while I try to slink through the halls unnoticed. But there's something about telling other people what to ignore that just doesn't work for me. Especially things we shouldn't be ignoring.Hear that girl in your class is being abused by her stepfather and had to go to the clinic? Hear she's bringing her mother's pills to school and selling them to pay for it? Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Mind your own business. Don't make waves. Fly under the radar. It's just one of those things, Vera. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. If we're supposed to ignore everything that's wrong in our lives, then I can't see how we'll ever make things right.”

“But that's a side effect of alcohol, isn't it? Stopping to think about other people is not on the bar menu.”