“...within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant.”

“In the dresser mirror, my face looks the same, but I feel something happening around me, some change as palpable as weather. Stuck in the mirror are mementos from my childhood—red and yellow ribbons for various underachievements, a brown corsage from grad school graduation, a curling and faded picture of me petting a deer in Wisconsin—which is now over. I wandered through it and came out the other side. It’s a stark feeling. Like getting to the last page of a book and seeing ‘The End.’ Even if you didn’t like the story that much, or your childhood, you read it, you lived it. And now it’s over, book closed, that long-ago deer you petted in the Dells as dead as the one in The Yearling.”

“The way everything seems to be working out right now, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up dead before the night is over.”

“On the very tip of his tongue is his Firerancher. Thin as tissue paper, it looks like the moon in the daytime sky. Suddenly love is looming over the car, as big and invisible as the ghost mountains of the Comobabi range. I smile at him and turn up the radio with my toes.”

“It feels weird right at this moment to not be anybody's sidekick. Hard to explain, but when I look at the moon, it seems like it's paying attention to me, instead of me paying attention to it. It's way up there now. Hi, moon, I say silently to it. Yes, I'm high, it says back. The moon has a sense of humor.”

“Sometimes when you're cruel to others, it's because you've gotten yourself into a situation you can't get out of.”

“Instead of slapping her head, I do what they tell you to do: count to ten. Only I do it the gifted way: 123+456+789+10. When your sister has hurtled you swerving into the darkness, stranded you at a funeral home, and threatens to get you in trouble, just stop and count to 1,378 before you respond.”