“Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. They hurt themselves instead; or else they do it so the guy doesn't even know he's been hurt until much later. Then he finds out. Then his dick falls off.”

“Will it hurt?" I ask. "Getting your parts replaced?"Freak doesn't answer for a while and then he says in his stern, smart voice, "Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain."I'm pretty worried about the whole deal, and I go, "But why do you want to be the first? Can't someone else be first? Isn't it dangerous?"Life is dangerous," Freak says.”

“The bottom line was that people who leaned too heavily on someone else were setting themselves up for a terrible fall, and they had no one to blame in the end but themselves for the hurt they suffered.Cork had learned the hard way.”

“Is that love, do you think?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious. "Being crazy about someone no matter how much they hurt you?”

“A person doesn't know true hurt and suffering until they've felt the pain of falling in love with someone whose affections lie elsewhere.”

“Nathaniel closes his eyes and jumps, his arms glued to his sides like that fly's. He doesn't try to break his fall, just hits hard, because it hurts less than everything else.”