“[He] starts to talk and stops, feeling his way, as if it's all clogged up rusty inside.”

“The man with two plungers for hands never wipes his ass, but he also never clogs up a toilet either.”

“Right now, I'd be willing to kiss Ed through a bag. So it's true what they say about teenage hormones. It seems I'm raging out of control. It's not very Jane Austen of me but it feels pretty good.The problem is, Ed's acting all Jane Austen on me and he won't stop talking. Shut up, I want to say. All talk and no action is really kind of frustrating.”

“He clings to his solitude, to his affected indifference and his grown-up ways, but it's just an act, so as never, never to show his real feelings.”

“Walking with Murphythrough the bone-freezing chilltoward the bus stop,I start shivering.And somehow,when he slips his arm around meto warm me up,it feels right.Righter than anything ever has.”

“He started to feel for himself, which is the only way to start feeling for others. (24)”