“...never touching, never talking, just smiling and keeping our eyes locked.”

“Dad nods, looks me dead in the eyes; slowly and regretfully, he banishes all the smiling and joking from his face, and for once he's just my dad, watching his son who has fallen so low.”

“But some people have to get lucky just to live. And I never knew I could make anybody lucky.”

“The Shift hasn't happened yet, maybe it never will, but sometimes-just enough times to give me hope-my brain jars back into where it's supposed to be.”

“You are blessed with a good mind. You just have to have confidence in it and talk when people call on you.”

“Someday someone is going to find this pelvis sexy or I'll never have children.”

“Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.”