“No one would ever know it to look at me that as soon as I'm alone I am busy busy busy in the head.”

“The problem, I decided, is that most human beings between the ages of twelve and fifteen look like their needs are special (retarded). ”

“Fighting was an exhausting business, and so was fear.”

“there's not a girl who's more hopeful than a slut, more optimistic.She may give in but she doesn't give up.She keeps looking, she keeps hoping, she's always waiting for that someone who will say it: i love you too.”

“When a state trooper passes me on the highway, I grit my teeth, check my speed, and hope nobody put a dead guy in the trunk while I was in Wal-Mart last night at two a.m.”

“...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.”

“Busy old fool, unruly Sophie”