“And like I said, I didn't know him very well, but my ears perked up whenever I heard his name. I guess I wanted to hear something - anything - juicy. Not because I wanted to spread gossip. I just couldn't believe someone could be that good.If he was actually that good... wonderful. Great! But it became a personal game of mine. How long could I go on hearing nothing but good things about Clay Jensen?Normally, when a person has a stellar image, another person's waiting in the wings to tear them apart. They're waiting for that one fatal flaw to expose itself.But not with Clay.”

“Normally when a person has a stellar image another person's waiting in the wings to tear them apart. They're waiting for that one fatal flaw to expose itself.”

“I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, "I have wonderful news!" And I was like, "I don't really want to hear wonderful news right now," and Gus said, "This is wonderful news you want to hear," and I asked him, "Fine, what is it?" and he said, "You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!”

“He wanted to believe that I was a good person and I wanted to believe that he was just another asshole.”

“Free' is more of that 'familiarity breeds contempt' kind of thing. It's about saying 'Wait, I'm longing for something more than I have and I don't know what it is that I want, but I know I want it.' It has nothing to do with what I'm going through, personally.”

“...I wanted to go to sleep so that I wouldn't have to think because the only thing I could think was how much it hurt because there was no room for anything else in my head, but I couldn't go to sleep and I just had to sit there and there was nothing to do except to wait and to hurt.”