“But you can't go around changing your definition of right and wrong (or smart and stupid) just because doing the wrong thing happens to be really convenient. Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.”

“Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.”

“You've got to be smart enough to write and stupid enough not to think about all the things that might go wrong.”

“Stupidity is a relevant term and it is relevant to the owner of the stupid brain. Smartness is an irrelevant term and it is irrelevant to the owner of the smart brain because even the smart people can do and say stupid things.”

“Smart people sometimes get stupid, but stupid people never get smart. Never. Ever. 'You can come down the evolutionary ladder,' Chon has observed to Ben and O; 'you can't climb up.”

“It was wrong then—for a stupid black city girl to fall in love with a smart southern white boy. But watching him chase the ball until he was right in front of me, I was enamored.”