“You know, Joey, the medication has helped settle you down, but you have been a good kid all along. You are naturally good. I hope you know that about yourself. You have a good heart.”

“But it was the kind of story that doesn't go away after the first time you tell it so you have to tell it over and over until it goes away for good. If it ever can.”

“...who proved that you don't have to do what your parents want, or what your boyfriend wants, for you to be happy. You just have to be yourself, for there is no love greater than self love”

“...we have to save the history we have. You never know what small bit of it might change your life--or change the whole world.”

“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.”

“Another thing I've been trying to do on my walks is to know what I'm looking at, when I'm looking at it. I want to be smart. When I walk down the sidewalk I see about a hundred different kinds of bugs and all I do is point at them like a caveman and say 'Ugh, look, a bug,' but I know each one of them must have a different name and a different reason why and how it came to be on the planet, and I don't know any of that stuff.”

“Granny was right,' I said. 'When you forgive someone it does make you stronger. It makes your heart bigger than your hate.”