“The thing of it was that the girls in my class who date boys do hardly anything else. Girls who I used to think were just boring I now think stupid beyond belief. I call them A-Girls and it is not a compliment.”

“Girls who kiss boys, girls who date them, girls who call them on the phone... that's all they do. There are other things I want to do.”

“I'd love it if the first time I spent the night with a girl it was because she was tired," James says. "I'd love it if it were you.”

“What else is a poem about?The rhythm and the images buried in the language. All the ways you can build an emotion with words, but you can't just write 'I feel sad.' I mean, you can, but it's not poetry... I think it has to be experienced instead of studied. You step into it.”

“still I think about him more than I don't. I'm I'm careful, I think about him all the time. What would it take to return to the ease of feeling safe and appreciated? The way I did with him. It would take, I decide, being 20. Better to think about my dead sister than a man whose kiss I will remember forever. Even if he vanishes as completely as Rebecca has.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with geeky," Link says before Dad has a chance to. Geeky is one of Dad’s favorite words, and I listen with glee to my brother’s imitation of our father: "Geeky people often have that which is most valuable in this life." Link pauses here for effect, so that James and I can join in, shouting Dad’s favorite phrase, "A mind with its own heartbeat.”

“Are you going to marry her?"I would know such a thing as that," Clarence says, "only well after the fact.”