“Even if she wasn't happy on the inside, the outside could be something else entirely. There was always another character to play.”

“It wasn't a hug - hugs ended quickly, even long ones, but this one persisted into something else entirely.”

“She has often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see.”

“The knowledge that she was needed by something living, that she could benefit another creature, produce happiness, or contentment, or just a feeling of security--somehow it filled a part of her as nothing else had.”

“Happiness is not be sought outside. It can never come from outside or from inside--because it simply is. It is always. Where? Everywhere.”

“It wasn't about how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn't about what she said in class--usually something no one else would've thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn't have dared to say. It wasn't that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious. It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn't.”