“From now on I will live in a state of joyous expectation.”

“At least I was capable of knowing there was some other kind of life possible, even if I was having trouble achieving it. They believed that the way they were living was the only kind of life that existed. They had no imagination to envision anything else, and no desire to reach it. I felt sorry for them. I still do sometimes, although that doesn't mean their constant idiocy isn't capable of driving me to the brink of madness. They never have learned from their mistakes. It would probably be easier on everyone if I stopped expecting them to.”

“Now I hoard knowledge out of fear. I figure the more I know, the more I'll be able to control a situation and keep from getting hurt again.”

“I knew I was in love with Lorri when I started to wake up in the middle of the night furious and cursing her for making me feel the way she did. It was pain beyond belief. Nothing has ever hurt me that way. I tried to sleep as much as possible just to escape. I was grinding my teeth down to nubs. Now, years later, it's exactly the opposite. Now there is no pain, yet she still makes my heart explode. Now there is only fun and love and silliness. She drives me to frenzy, because I can never get enough.”

“The older I grow, the more I understand what the burned woman meant. Things I was able to walk through unscathed in my youth would mark me for life or damage me beyond repair now. Things I once shrugged off without thought would now bring about my collapse. I was much more flexible in both mind and body as a youth. I could absorb the impact and roll with the punches.”

“I began doing my own research into Wicca, reading about it and even meeting a group of local teens who were followers of the religion. They were a good source of information, but I couldn't stand being around them. They were all extremely flaky and melodramatic. I felt embarrassed for them, as they didn't have the sense to realize how socially inept they were. Wicca is a beautiful religion in theory, but I distanced myself from anything to do with it because I couldn't take the people. Many of them are people in their thirties who still try to live and behave like teenagers. Wicca seems to draw a great many people who cannot or will not grow up.”

“As I grew older I learned to be ashamed of being poor, too. It became humiliating, something I'd do everything I could to hide from the rest of the world. I developed an overwhelming sense of being excluded from everything. Everywhere you look you see people with things that you do not have, and it has a profound mental effect. That's mostly during the teenage years.”