“Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy.”

“I wasn't going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I'd feel ashamed, which meant I'd get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn't get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing—homelessness. If you can't get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.”

“They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn't working. I would never be able to do it.”

“Why were the other kids doing better than me? Because they were better, that's why That's what I knew every time I sat down online or got on the subway to Aaron's house. Other people weren't smoking or jerking off, and those that were were gifted-able to live and compete at the same time. I wasn't gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

“I wasn’t gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

“I don't want to brag, but if I go through this, and I go back to camp, I'll have something unique to talk about. I can be like, 'Hey, not only am I not a virgin, I lost my virginity to a frog-headed exotic dancer.' Will that be something to brag about or something to be ashamed of?”

“I was happy about different things. I was happy because someday I'd be walking across this bridge looking at this city, owning some piece of it, being valuable here.”