“It wasn't ass-screaming Beaker, though. It was fourteen girls in matching, form fitting sweats, all of which read RIDGE CHEERLEADING on the butt. (A form of ass-screaming, I suppose.) Each had her name on the back of her sleek warm-up fleece. They clustered around the snack bar, yelling at the top of their lungs. I really hoped and prayed that they wouldn't all say "Oh my God!" at once, but my prayers were not heard, maybe because God was busy listening to all of them.”

“Certainly it’s all in bloom, certainly we’ll go. For aren’t you and I gods? . . . I sense in my blood the rotation of unexplorable universes. . . .Listen—I want to run all my life, screaming at the top of my lungs. Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator.Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming, choking on its screams. Laughter. Running. Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.”

“I have the overwhelming urge to pull her up out of her chair and kiss her in front of everyone, then scream my resignation at the top of my lungs.”

“A gunshot screamed into the night. Both Isaiah and I froze. I prayed to God that nothing warm or wet left my body, and I wasn't referring to piss.”

“It was five minutes of screaming, slamming myself against the door, and stamping my feet-and a minute of contemplating the cold, horrible idea that I might have to leave the room to find anyone, and maybe this had been their plan all along, and Oh God, Oh God-before I heard Dr. Elpinoy's nervous voice.”

“Lily closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs as she made the scariest fall of her life, plunging to her certain death while clinging to her rescuer who really didn’t rescue her at all.”