“At least no one's trying to kill anyone.Give them about fifteen minutes”

“Lena's hair was sticking out in about fifteen directions, and her eyes were all small and puffy from crying. So this was what girls looked like in the morning. I had never seen one, not up close.”

“I couldn't sit by and watch them try to take her down. Not her.”

“So why did I think about her every second? Why was I so much happier the minute I saw her? I felt like maybe I knew the answer, but how could I be sure? I didn't know, and I didn't have any way to find out.Guys don't talk about stuff like that. We just lie under the pile of bricks.”

“Was it worth it? Feeling better for a minute or two, knowing that the cold would still be out there waiting?”

“I wanted to stay this way forever.Which, it turns out, was exactly five more minutes.”

“It wasn't about how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn't about what she said in class--usually something no one else would've thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn't have dared to say. It wasn't that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious. It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn't.”