“Sex Ed - when I finally got to take it - was all about biology and birth control and nothing about anything that actually goes on between people.”

“Dances are generally more fun to think about and get ready for than they actually are when you get there.”

“I sit around too much, waiting for other people to do stuff and angsting about stuff they've done, without doing anything myself.”

“There's something about seeing a guy's feelings written down, something about him taking that risk and committing that heart to paper, that means so much more than anything he could just say.”

“People think of hearts when they think of love, but a heart is a bloody organ in the body. It doesn't have any emotions. It's like a metaphor for love that has nothing to do with what love actually is.”

“Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them.”

“Roo: What’s your definition of popularity?Hutch: I used to think people were popular because they were good-looking, or nice, or funny, or good at sports. Roo: Aren’t they?Hutch: I’d think, if I could just be those things, I’d – you know – have more friends than I do. But in seventh grade, when Jackson and those guys stopped hanging out with me, I tried as hard as I could to get them to like me again. But then . . . (shaking his head as if to clear it) I don’t really wanna talk about it. Roo: What happened? Hutch: They just did some ugly stuff to me is all. And really, it was for the best. Roo: Why?Hutch: Because I was cured. I realized the popular people weren’t nice or funny or great-looking. They just had power, and they actually got the power by teasing people or humiliating them – so people bonded to them out of fear. Roo: Oh. Hutch: I didn’t want to be a person who could act like that. I didn’t want to ever speak to any person who could act like that. Roo: OhHutch: So then I wasn’t trying to be popular anymore. Roo: Weren’t you lonely?Hutch: I didn’t say it was fun. (He bites his thumbnail, bonsai dirt and all.) I said it was for the best.”