“I could have gone my entire life without the image of my mom and Dick engaged in a sexual role-playing game. Especially in my clothes.”

“My mom giggled and whacked Dick with a dish towel. I would have whacked him harder with the cutting board, but that was just my preference.”

“Shit. I was stuck. I suspected Dick would skip the hassle of having to ferry me back and forth to talk to someone and instead convince my mom to toss me into a mental ward where I could stay out of his hair and he'd have her all to himself. I imagined myself wearing institutional pajamas and having to eat everything with a spoon because no one would trust me with a fork or knife. Most likely my roommate would be some freakish, giant-size woman who didn't speak because she'd chewed off her own tongue.”

“I refused to believe that I'd gone from sane to full-blown delusional in one night. After some consideration, I determined I didn't have any other crazy thoughts. I didn't think I was Napoleon, or that my bagel was an alien, and I didn't have voices in my head warning me about terrorist plots. Near as I could tell, I was still on the right side of sane.”

“What's wrong? Are you trying to make me lose it? Why didn't you say something when I came in?""I didn't know I was supposed to. You called out for your mom. I didn't know I was required to announce my presence like it was roll call.”

“Mr. Winston and I had already discussed:How what I'd done was vile and on par with kicking disabled kittens.That I was on the path to becoming a criminal and likely would spend the rest of my life in jail giving myself homemade tattoos with a needle and Bic pen.That the statue was a work of art, and would I dare to ear the arm off the Mona Lisa? He didn't think so.That I was a disappointment to him, my family, my boyfriend, my fellow students, and likely all of Western civilization.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you do something embarrassing like fall down the stairs in front of a group of people, you are required to act like you are fine, even if you aren't. Your arm could have a bone jutting out, and you would still try to laugh it off as if everything were hunky dory. This compound fracture? It's nothing! I like to let my bones out of my body once in a while for fresh air. It's good for them.”