“Is it so impossible that Conrad Fisher would like me?”

“And after, when it was bedtime, I would sing, “We love you, Conrad, oh yes we do. We love you, Conrad, and we’ll be true” into the bathroom mirror with a mouthful of toothpaste. I would sing my eight-nine-ten-year-old heart out. But I wasn’t singing to Conrad Birdie. I was singing to my Conrad. Conrad Beck Fisher, the boy of my preteen dreams.”

“I punched my hand through the water. I wanted to kick his ass. 'This is between me and Belly.' Smug piece of shit." - Conrad Fisher”

“I never once cheated on you. I never even looked at another girl when we were together.”Conrad Fisher”

“When Conrad Fisher told a girl he loved her, he meant it. A girl could believe in that. A girl could maybe even bet her whole life on it.”

“If circumstances should make it impossible (temporarily, I hope) for me to be a Russian writer, perhaps I shall be able, like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become for a time an English writer... ("Letter To Stalin")”