“Jasmine is logical in her thinking. One step leading to another. Analyzing probabilities and discarding them.""You look surprised. Didn't you know that I was smart?" She pretends to be angry.Even though I know she is teasing me, I feel my face get red-hot. How can I tell her that I knew but I didn't know -- like seeing the sunset every evening but not seeing it.”

“Aurora once told me that she knew I was different within the first few months after I was born, because as a baby, I never cried. She had no way of knowing if I was hungry or if my stomach hurt until I was old enough to point and talk. Even when I fell and it was obvious that I had hurt myself, I did not cry. When I didn't get my way, I would go off by myself and sulk or have a tantrum. But I never cried. Later, when I was eleven and Abba died, I didn't cry. When Joseph, my best friend at St. Elizabeth's, died, I didn't cry. Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world.So it is very strange to feel my eyes well with tears as I read Jasmine's list.”

“I hope you make it through law school still feeling like you do.' 'Why wouldn't I?' I asked him. And he answered, 'Sometimes you start off going one way and you eng up going another way and you don't know how it happened.”

“The dictionary defines pride as “pleasure or satisfaction in one’s work or achievement.” According to that definition a person needs to do something before you can be proud of them. You could not be proud of them simply for who they are. I’m not sure I know what pride in another person feels like.”

“Then it comes to me. It cannot be that this is the first time I realized this, but it is. We all have ugly parts. I think of the time in the cafeteria when Jasmine asked me what the girl in the picture was asking me. How do we live with all the suffering? We see our ugly parts, and then we are able to forgive, love kindness, walk humbly.”

“Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world.”

“Is not seeing any ugly parts in myself an ugly part? Is not wanting to forgive someone's ugly parts an ugly part in oneself?"Yeah. I didn't understand a word you said, but yeah.”