“Deep down I'm still afraid, but at least I can deal with it.”

“I wanted to keep looking at her because I wanted to never take my eyes from her, but still I had tolower my eyes, I was so ashamed that even now Jenny was reading my mind so perfectly.'Listen, that's the only goddamn thing I'm asking, Ollie. Otherwise, I know you'll be okay.' That thing in my gut was stirring again, so I was afraid to even speak the word 'okay.' I justlooked mutely at Jenny.”

“I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.”

“Jenny, if you're so con­vinced I'm a loser, why did you bull­doze me into buy­ing you cof­fee?'She looked me straight in the eye and smiled.'I like your body,' she said.”

“I mean, imagine for a second Olivero Barretto, some nice Italian kid from down the block in Cranston, Rhode Island. He comes to see Mr. Cavilleri, a wage-earning pastry chef of that city, and says, "I would like to marry your only daughter, Jennifer." What would the old man's first question be? (He would not question Barretto's love, since to know Jenny is to love Jenny; it's a universal truth). No, Mr. Cavilleri would say something like, "Barretto, how are you going to support her?”

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”

“Quiet heroism or youthful idealism, or both? What do we know? That life without heroism and idealism is not worth living - or that either can be fatal?”