“Before everything, I used to do this thing when I was upset-I used to take all my feelings and push them down inside me. It was like they were garbage and I was compacting it to get more in. I felt like I could keep pushing all my feelings down into my socks and I wouldn't have to worry about them. I don't think I do that anymore.”

“I was surprised that every single person I talked to had a story about how depression had affected their lives. Carmelita Gamboa, a teenager in Michigan, later wrote to me, "The sad thing is, after a while, it starts to feel like home". It does, doesn't it?”

“I think that maybe, if human beings have souls, that maybe their souls are in their eyes. That maybe that’s what the color is. Their souls.""Well, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.""No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, the actual color is kind of like your spirit, like your soul. And the black space, maybe the black space is the tunnel that people talk about when they die. Do you know what I mean? Like when you die, you go into the eyes of the person you’re looking at and walk through their eyes and, at the other end, that’s where heaven is.”

“You're all trying to figure out what went wrong inside my head. Fucking idiots. You'll never crack the code that's inside my head. You'll never get into my castle. You'll never even get past the gate.”

“So what does that make you think about God?I think that maybe, if human beings have souls, that maybe their souls are in their eyes. That maybe that's what the color is. Their souls.”

“I’m probably sterile. At least I can stop worrying about getting girls pregnant (if I ever get to have sex with them). Do you still get horny if your nuts are broken? My eyes open, and I find Andre standing over me, saying, “I felt your nads through my helmet!” I stop writhing for a second to give him props. “That’s gold, dude!”

“He says everything like it happened to someone else.”