“I look back to where my life had been. It's always risky to think of letting go. That's why this is the perfect ending. Nothing left to reconcile.”

“In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?”

“At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.”

“I think how this is always the way he is, giving me something even when most would think there was nothing left to do but let go”

“As I was escorted outside by the officers, my friends looked back at me with blank expressions. I don’t think they knew what to say to me. I had lied to them about my home life. They had always been there for me and probably would have understood if I had told them the truth from the start, but it was too late. All the lies I had told them about having a perfect family had been shattered by that one incident.”

“Because I want to go to the dance," I said."But why can't you go as a boy? Won't it be risky going as a girl?"Of course it would be risky. But everything I'd done for the past four months had been risky.I took a deep breath before speaking. "I want to go as a girl, because I want to dance with a particular boy."Mrs. Smithers rolled her eyes at this. "There's always a boy, isn't there?”