“It’s all the same to me—a fucking red flagemblazoned with the words DO NOT BECOME EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED WITH ME, and this bed is barely big enough for my own baggage.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? I just got back and I can barely stand on my own. What do you want me to do? Bleed on them? (Fang)”

“my mom and dad came into my room, and even though it was really not big enough for all three of us, they lay on either side of the bed with me and we all watched ANTM on the little TV in my room.”

“I stroked a big red A on top of his paper. Looked at it for a moment or two, then added a big red +. Because it was good, and because his pain had evoked an emotional reaction in me, his reader. And isn’t that what A+ writing is supposed to do? Evoke a response?”

“For me, that emotional payoff is what it’s all about. I want you to laugh or cry when you read a story...or do both at the same time. I want your heart, in other words. If you want to learn something, go to school.”

“I have no desire to sleep with you. I want to fuck you. And there is no such thing as perfectly good sex.  If it’s “perfectly good,” I mock in falsetto, “he should be shot in the head and put out of everyone’s misery. Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough. You want me to blow your fucking mind, Ms. Lane? Come on.  Do it.  Be a big girl.”