“When I look back on the stuff I used to wear, I wonder why somebody didn't try to stop me. Just a friendly warning, "You may regret this," would have been fine.”

“People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine. . . . I always wondered, ``Why has nobody discovered me?'' In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn't need? I got fuckin' lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie ``You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous, '' and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them? I was different I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint - express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a teacher”

“looks like i'm gonna do everything myselfmaybe i could use some help but hell,you want something done right you gotta do it yourselfmaybe life is up and down but my life's been (what?)till now i crawled up your butt somehow and that'swhen things got turned around i used to be alivenow i feel pathetic and now i get it what's done is done you just leave it aloneand don't regret it but sometimes,some things turn into dumb thingsand that's when you put your foot down.why did i have to go and meet somebody like you (like you)why did you have to go and hurt somebody like me (like me)how could you do somebody like that?(like that) hope you know that i'm never coming back (never coming back)”

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”

“Do you like Cam?” the girl asked me casually. I wondered how she knew him—I thought he’d been a nobody just like me.“I barely even know him,” I told her, and her face relaxed. She was relieved. I recognized that look in her eyes—dreamy and hopeful. It must have been the way I looked when I used to talk about Conrad, used to try to think of ways to insert his name into conversation. It made me sad for her, for me.”

“When will you stop trying to educate me, I wonder? Never I hope.”