“Be selfish, be unreasonable, and don't worry about it. We're girls, so we are allowed. Being a girl is a privilege, and we should take full advantage of that fact. We have the right and the duty to act as we please. But a boy who makes a girl cry is worthless and he brings shame into the romance and makes it untrue.”

“We don't need a point, son. We're juvenile, we're dirty, we don't have girls, we have noses full of snot, throats sore as hell, we've got scabs on us, we suffer bouts of acne, we've got no girls ... What more reasons do we need?”

“Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.”

“Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently- whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?”

“If it would destroy [a 12-year-old boy] to be called a girl, what are we then teaching him about girls?”

“When a girl cries, few things are more worthless than a boy.”