“I don't want to be empty on the inside.”

“I still don't know much about art, but I do know that there are places inside of us―palaces of glorious light and caverns of unknowable darkness. Magical places filled with brilliant, unimaginable colors that we suffer to bring forth.”

“It's strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don't you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it's only good the second time if it's the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you.”

“Mary believes she was put on earth to bring an end to the living world.”Both Nick and Mikey just stared at her.“What do you mean … end?” asked Mikey.“End means end. Complete and total destruction. She wants to kill everyone and everything. She wants to bring down every building, burn every forest, empty every ocean of life. She wants to turn the earth into a dead planet …”

“I don't want to go to the government," the Schwa says. "Yeah," I said. "They'd dissect him and put him in a formaldehyde fish tank in Area 51." Howie shook his head. "Area 51 is for aliens," he says. "They'd probably put him in Area 52.”

“Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don't teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn't want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn't want kids to know how much power they really had.”

“On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents' eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out.”