“High expectations I have. In hardness I labor that, fuller joy at the top I may partake. Nevertheless, in vain I toil. And then, friends'and people's reproach I become, because of my drowning hopes that keeps me out of the circle of richies and honor. I'm the distance they keep like plague, because I have no physical wealth and glamour like them. But in all my stony falls and griefs, the word of restoration in the blood given to me upon the altar of salvation, I cling. For in the end, mercy will attend my situation and see to my hard labor with crown of great success.”

“Employment: I’ll trade my time and labor for your money. So time is not money, because money is time plus labor. I spend my time saving money, I spend my money saving time, and I labor hard to not labor hard.”

“This pen is my only outlet, my only voice, because I have no one else to speak to, no mind but my own to drown in and all the lifeboats are taken and all the life preservers are broken and I don’t know how to swim I can’t swim I can’t swim and it’s getting so hard. It’s getting so hard. It’s like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what’s the point of screaming if you’ll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in here. No one will ever hear me again.”

“I couldn't eat because that book made me cry so hard, I couldn't even breathe. Connie said to keep reading and keep breathing, like that was easy. Tears and snot just about came out my butt, I cried so hard”

“If, for example, I saw my grandparents or my daughter for an instant, would I recognize them? Probably not, because in looking so hard for a way to keep them alive, remembering them in the most minimal details, I have been changing them, adorning them with qualities they may not have had. I have given them a destiny much more complex than the ones they lived.”

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”