“Talk Back? That's really what it's called? You're supposed to walk into some church basement and say, 'I'm here to learn how to Talk Back'?”

“Still, I couldn't get over Dad calling those farmers. People might think helping is hard, but really that's the easy part; just look how good it makes people feel. Look how happy all those Red Bend ladies were about chipping in. It's the asking that's so painful. It takes real courage, real strength, to say you're not strong enough to do it alone. Mom must really be hurting for Dad to be so brave.”

“I’d promised myself that I’d really work on talking more, talking about uncomfortable things, because I could see from Brian how well things could work out if you did.”

“But it turns out that even if I don’t talk a lot, when it’s something that matters I still have a lot to say.”

“When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.”

“Sometimes,well,all the time,I can't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff,and then maybe I think of it like five days later.”

“She says you're not truly human until you've had your heart broken and you've broken someone's heart.”