“Epochs later, the curtains grew dusty and brittle, the deep, vicious colour of a bruise. The floorboards creaked and we were civilized. We were no longer the wild, ravening voices of the world, howling our shame and indignation at the sky.”

“You presume to name those who have no name. We are pandemonium and disaster. We are the dancing, gibbering horror of the world.”

“On the opposite page, there was a poem. It described how beauty and truth mattered more than anything else. They were the same thing. But it didn't matter how pretty you painted the world.”

“It was completely unshocking that there were monsters in the world, secretrituals and underground burrows filled with the dead, when in my own way, I was secret and sort of monstrous too. It just didn’t show in the same way.”

“The Cutter leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. 'Fool me once,' he whispered, 'shame on you.' He pressed the bridge of his nose against mine, his breath burning the back of my throat. His voice was rough and furious. 'Fool me twice, and I will cut out your fucking throat.”

“It wasn't like the other songs. There was no story, no conversation. This was just the feeling, without words or pictures, and it had nothing to do with Luther or his clean, stinging guitar. It was the sound of being outside, of being alien. It was the pulse that ran under everything and never let you forget that you were strange, that the world hurt just to touch.”

“Once, I ordered two thousand lady bugs from the local garden center and set them loose in the atrium. I sprinkled marigold seeds in the ficus planters and put gold fish in the lobby fountain. These are things I did with no consequences, no repercussions. My nineteen detentions were for smart answers and missed homework. There is no equivalent punishment for making the world a stranger place.”