“Only one day at public school and the bitches already made your locker rain?" she laughs. "Impressive.”

“The only thing that separated the so-called real world from high school was a locker combination”

“She is not what I envied in high school, the popular girl. She is something I'm not even sure existed then, the sure-footed girl. She gives the impression of being completely herself, and only a part of that impression is false.”

“THE TRUTH ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION • American fifteen-year-olds rank thirty-fifth out of fifty-seven developed countries in math and literacy. • 30 percent of public school students don’t graduate from high school. • Every day, 7,000 kids drop out of high school. • Of the 50 million children currently in public school, 15 million of them will drop out. • 25 percent of all public school math teachers did not major in mathematics or a math-related subject at a college or university. • Less than two-thirds of high school graduates are accepted to college every year. • One half...”

“I still remember my middle school locker combination. Maybe I should go back to my old locker to see if I left my innocence in there.”

“I couldn't remember ordinary moments, only the ones that had made an impression. Ordinary moments were the ones that fell away first.”