“The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul.”

“There is no human soul, and I am absolutely for sure seriously not going to fucking cry.”

“Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.”

“It's one thing for my parents to behave all secular humanist and gamble with their own eternal souls; however it's altogether not all right that they also gambled with mine: They placed their bets with such self-rightous bravado, but I'm the one who lost.”

“To both my parents, the world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard.”

“Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.”

“this is the upside of already being eternally damned”