“Kid says to me, "You play baseball? What position? Left out?" and gets a big laugh from the rest of the class. Kid is only one person out of 6.792 billion humans on this planet. This planet is only one-eighth of the solar system, whose sun is one of two billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Put it that way, the comment loses it's importance.”

“There's no way to convince her that just because you put half. planet between you and someone else, you can't drive that person out of your thoughts. Believe me. I've tried.”

“What I mean is that those thoughts, they're human. And just because you turn out differently than everyone's imagined you would doesn't mean that you've failed in some way. A kid who gets teased in one school might move to a different one, and be the most popular girl there, just because no one has any other expectations of her. Or a person who goes to med school because his entire family is full of doctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead.”

“When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start learning in fourth grade, this one you are born with, and eventually lose...Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult...is only a slow sewing it shut.”

“No one gets to start where they left off; it just doesn't work that way.”

“I think there are two different oceans - the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter.”

“In other words, what looks like cruel and heartless from one angle might, from another, actually be the only way to protect your family. -Lucas”