“After a few years of moving to new schools I stopped being afraid to be lonely. It took me a while but I finally realized that there would always be geeks. And geeks aren’t concerned with being popular or making sure they’re voted homecoming princess because their whole life they’ve been on the outside. And let me tell you, once you’ve been on the outside, you find out that it’s actually pretty awesome out there. It’s much easier to be yourself when nobody is watching…or better yet, you don’t care if anybody is watching.”

“I haven’t started counting yet. I wonder if it’s just me or if it’s like that for everybody; that every time someone dies you start counting how much time has passed since they’ve been gone. First you count it in minutes, then in hours. You count in days, then weeks, then months. Then one day you realize that you aren’t counting anymore, and you don’t even know when you stopped. That’s the moment they’re gone.”

“All Julie has to do is explain to her friends that she's using it to individually seal each item that she throws out.""Then they'd think she was a geek," I said."She will thank me later," Monk said."Why would she thank you for being considered a geek?""Don't you know anything about teenage life?" Monk said. "It's a badge of respect.""It is?""I was one," he said."You don't say.""A very special one. I was crowned King of the Geeks, not once, but every single year of high school," Monk said. "It's a record that remains unbroken in my school to this day.""Were there a lot of students who wanted to be King of the Geeks?""It's like being homecoming king, only better. You don't have to go to any dances," Monk said. "You aren't even invited.”

“And I don’t know what difference it made, this sudden flash. It wasn’t like I wanted to, you know, grab life in a passionate embrace and vow never to let it go until it let go of me. In a way, it makes things worse, not better. Once you stop pretending that everything’s shitty and you can’t wait to get out of it, which is the story I’d been telling myself for a while, then it gets more painful, not less. Telling yourself life is shit is like an anesthetic, and when you stop taking the Advil, then you really can tell how much it hurts, and where, and it’s not like that kind of pain does anyone a whole lot of good.”

“I practice karate moves when I think nobody is watching. It’s all part of being a real American badass, I guess. Chicks dig it. I mean they would, if they ever looked and caught me in a moment of awesomeness.
”

“When you’re an introvert like me and you’ve been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It’s a real release.”