“I’m a complicated man, with complicated taste buds.”

“But it's high school. It's not real love, or at least you can't be sure it's real love. Real love is messy and complicated and brutal. It's been tested. Zik and Michelle have never been tested by anything mroe than being separated by a couple of classes.”

“Medicine cabinets are dangerous. Those doors, man. They'll just spring on you like a ninja.”

“(Man, I wish life had emoticons, you know? So that when your dad pisses you off you could like click a mental button or something and just show him one of those rolleyes. That would rock)Anyway.”

“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.”“That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.”

“In baseball, when you get into the batter's box, that's it. It's just you. It's one man against the world. All that matters in that moment is your individual achievement and your individual skill. There is literally nothing that anyone else on your team can do for you. Hell, they're all sitting on the bench, waiting to see what happens, just like the fans in the crowd! It's just you and your bat. And the ball.”

“Here’s the thing about baseball-it’s not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that.Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter’s box like a soldier and it’s up to him-and him alone-what happens next.But here’s the thing I didn’t understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run…Someone else has to pitch the ball.”