“What they held was already inside me, and together we could get away. And standing over the smoldering pile of paper and type, still warm the next cold morning, I understood that there was something else I could do. "Fuck it," I thought, "I can write my own.”

“on that piece of white paper, sam wrote, "write about me sometime." and i typed something back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. i just typed. "i will.”

“Frustration was my constant companion. I wanted to scream. "What the he-eck are we supposed to do now? I asked Fang.He looked at me, and I could tell he was mulling over the problem. He held out a small waxed-paper bag.Peanut?”

“I remember being thirteen years old, sitting in my room all night, listening to the same song over and over. I thought that if I could write something beautiful, something honest, I could make someone love me.”

“My heart clenches. I still love this boy. The realization scares me. I thought I was over it. I thought I could handle something like this; an impromptu run in.”

“I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone . . . I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd get married. She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a piece of paper, like everybody else”