“I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy...”

“In the middle of the night I am awakened by a sound. I sit up abruptly in bed. I hear it again. It's music. Wait, it sounds like the ice cream man, in our house. Is this some kind of twisted nightmare? The flipping ice cream man, breaking in to chop us all up in our beds to the tune of 'Zippity Do Dah'?... My heart slows. I remember. There is no psycho ice cream man here. It is just our new musical soap dispenser...”

“If there is shit all around me, how can I eat my ice cream?”

“She went out with Jacob for five dates, and then they broke up. She came over that night with a tub of ice cream and a bag of Hershey's KISSES. "Comfort food?" I said."If I needed comfort food I'd have brought two tubs of ice cream. I'm nor upset, Luce. This is what I always eat on a Friday night.”

“On Friday night, I was reading my new book, but my brain got tired, so I decided to watch some television instead.”

“I held up my ice-cream cone in the gesture of a toast. "Number thirteen: Eat ice cream in public."About this one... I don't get it. What's the big deal about eating ice cream?"Fat people aren't allowed to eat in public."What are you talking about?" she said, a bit snobbily in my opinion. "I notice them eating all the time."Exactly."You lost me."It's hard to enjoy the eating experience when you feel everyone's staring at you, thinking, No wonder she's such a fat cow. Look how she eats."I don't think that!"Sure.”