“I don’t want you to explain. I want you to convince me I’m wrong. Or admit I’m right.”

“And because I’m so out of control, I can’t help myself. I’m not even mine anymore, I’m yours, and what if you decide that you don’t want me? How could you want me like I want you?”

“Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.”

“People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It’s wrong. They feel their slaughters. It’s wrong, and people know it’s wrong. They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.”

“I’m here to right wrongs and I’m gonna do it, Angel. You told me I’d had my last chance but I don’t accept that and I won’t. If you tell me now that my explanation is not enough and you want me gone, I’m not goin’. I’m not giving up. I got one part of my life’s dream still open to me, very sign she gives me is screaming that she’s standing in my arms right now and I’m not gonna be ninety years old, looking back on my life and regretting that I gave up that dream.”

“It’s like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don’t give a shit and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I’m sick of people thinking I’m difficult.”