“What did it sound like...having someone call your name across a crowded school yard? How did it feel to turn to the sound of your name, to see some smiling face or waving hand and know it was for you and you alone?" —Staggerlee”

“That's what makes best friends. It's not whether or not you live on the same block or go to the same school, but how you feel about each other in your hearts.”

“If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them." —Staggerlee”

“And freedom? Oh, freedom. Well that's just some people talking. Your prison is walking through this world all alone.”

“Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh. ”

“But it's what the world does to people. It makes some of us feel ugly and it makes some of us look like criminals, like angry fools.”

“It seemed like someone was always leaving someone, like that's the way the world worked—people were born and people died, people left and people came. It was like the world was saying you can't have everything you want at the same time.”