“I am aware that somewhere along the line, I've subconsciously turned down the pitch of my speech, like a silencer of a gun that softens the sound of its firing. Now, even when I yell, I don't feel like I am using my full voice.”

“I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.”

“You don't know. When I'm out there at night I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark - I'm on fire almost - I'm burning away into nothing - but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am.”

“There it is again, right in my head, I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME -But this time it's different -There's a lightness -A breath-stealing feeling -A weightlessness to it that makes my stomach rise -"I give you a gift," he says, his voice floating thru my head like a cloud on fire. "The same gift I've given to my captains. Use it. Use it to defeat me. I dare you."I look into his eyes, into the blackness of them, the blackness that swallows me whole -I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.And that's all I can hear in the whole world.”

“Maybe one night I’ll be asleep and I’ll feel a hand like a dove on my cheekbone and feel her breath cool like peppermints and when I open my eyes my mom will be there like an angle, saying in the softest voice, When you are born it is like a long, long dream. Don’t try to wake up. Just go along until it is over. Don’t be afraid. You may not know it all the time but I am with you. I am with you.”

“It's why I went into teaching in the first place. I like the sound of my own voice. Well that, and I am addicted to the smell of chalk and white-board markers.”