“I start laughing. You have to laugh. Life is just funny sometimes. As long as you remember.”

“I shrug, and then we sit awhile without saying anything. Then he goes, 'Where'd you learn to fight like that, anyway?'I start to shrug again, and then I stop. 'I guess from my dad,' I say, which, really, is the truth.”

“He apologized when I was twelve. He was crying. I don't like to remember that. I like to remember the time he spelled and defined 'metamorphosis' when my mama was clean. He used her as an example, and he was chewing on the Popsicle stick left over from our lunch that day. When he smiled, his teeth were mad purple.”

“Nah,' I tell her after a while. 'He is more like a brother, you know?'The good kind. The kind with the purple teeth.”

“Grace,' my mother tries, just before my frozen hot chocolate comes. I don't answer her.Later, while she's waiting for her credit card back from the waitress, she says, 'I'm sorry.”

“If I could be small again, Monique told me at the playground's fence, slurring her words and watching Caitlin sob, I'd want to have a friend like her.”

“Sonia, every dog does not bite, nor does each bee sting. For each schoolmate who insults you, there must be fifty who do not. And for every Muslim terrorist, there are thousands of us who oppose violence. Tell those who are cruel to you that in their cruelty, they are the terror. Then inform them that they are forgiven, for such forgiveness may shame some toward kindness.”