“Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?”

“I was angry all the time about the future I didn't want with people I didn't like. But I didn't know what I wanted - so what else was there to do?”

“People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.”

“I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.”

“It's all very dramatic and everything, but so what? I didn't know the guy. People I don't know die all the damned time.”

“I didn't want to be a virgin. That much I knew. I didn't want to feel like the immature prude who knew nothing about sex. I hated not knowing things. The trouble was...as much as I didn't want to be a virgin, I also didn't want to have sex.”