“For one second I thought I saw it and I reached down and snatched up a little flesh-colored round thing, but ti was just a used round Band-Aid. My mother slapped it out o fmy hand and that was the first moment I realized she was mad at me too. And suddenly it was as if my heart was as uncontrollable as my legs. All this time I thought she was on my side, because I wa son her side. But maybe she had given up on me too. So I didn't say anything more because I was scared she was going to be against me like everyone else.”

“I knew she was not telling me the truth. I asked her again what had happned because I don't like it when she keeps something from me. She's not allowed. Because when she lies, someting inside me changes, and it's like the WHOLE WORLD is one way and I'm the other. Like I can't trust a thing, as if the whole world knows a secret I don't and I'm running around from person to person asking them to tell me but they won't and the more I don't know what is going on the more scared I become and I feel myself drifting farther and farther away from everyone.”

“At the time I didn't realize their lie was a defense against the fear they had of losing their mother. I was still too young to understand that most lies were not about stealing or fighting or cheating but were just ways by which a person shrinks their whole world down to a size they can keep protected in the palm of one hand.”

“I like Saturdays. They are my best thinking days. It is my day to try to find that one special thought that turns into an idea that I remember forever and becomes a part of who I am, like a freckle or a finger or an ear. Even before I open my eyes I take a deep breath and try to picture something, anything, as if my brain were a keyhole where I can spy on my future. So each Saturday morning I try to find a little piece of a thought, and then I keep turning it over in my mind until it turns into a complete idea and at the end of the day when I'm lying in bed I put the whole thought into a little room in my head so I can remember it.”

“Since I was trying so hard to make books lead my life, I didn’t want to read them and then just put them back on the shelf and say, “good book,” as if I was patting a good dog. I wanted books to change me, and I wanted to write books that would change others.”

“I could see everything she said as if it were a wall painting inside the cave of my own skull.”

“It wasn't that I hated being asked a bunch of questions. I had nothing against questions. I just didn't like listening to them, because some questions take forever to make sense. Sometimes waiting for a question to finish is like watching someone draw an elephant starting with the tail first. As soon as you see the tail your mind wanders all over the place and you think of a million other animals that also have tails until you don't care about the elephant because it's only one thing when you've been thinking about a million others.”