“I just want to fly under the radar, because when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that's when you get shot down.”

“Because personally I think mattering is a piss-poor idea. I just want to fly under the radar, because when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that’s when you get shot down. The bigger a deal you are, the worse your life is.”

“Well," Ben went on,"someone should just tell her to come on home, because she can find the world's largest balls right here in Orlando, Florida. They're located in a special display case known as 'my scrotum.'" Radar laughed, and Ben continued. "I mean seriously. My balls are so big that when you order french fries from McDonald's, you can choose one of four sizes: small, medium,large, and my balls.”

“You can't just make yourself matter and then die, Alaska, because now I am irretrievably different..”

“Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?" "Sometimes people don't always understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said.Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?"I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer.But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.”

“The idea of "the authentic self," and how everyone is always talking about "being yourself," and how when you're yourself you get friends or you get boyfriends, and until you're yourself you don't. It's a crazy idea, because who's self would you otherwise be being? That relationship between constructed identities and identities that feel authentic to you is really fascinating to me. I think about it a lot.”

“Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt.”