“People just don't seem to get me. Don't understand that I need my space. Always telling me what to do. They think rules and routines and clean hands and your p's and q's will make everything all right. They haven't got a clue.”

“I don't understand, Jem. I don't understand why you'd leave me. Why would you that?”

“It's okay to talk about it. Death is so normal, I don't know why everyone gets so hung up about it. We all have to deal with it. Most people that you talk to have lost someone, but nobody talks about it.”

“He loved me and I loved him, but the number in my head was telling me that he was going to die today. And the numbers had never been wrong.”

“And just when I though things were starting to get better, everything had gone wrong again.”

“My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, as usual. Wishing I wasn't there, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards—we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it's gone, anyway. Tomorrow may never come. There is only today. This is the best day and the worst day. Actually it's crap.”

“I'm not a little girl." And he'd never spoken to me like that. Not ever. "I don't know what your problem is, but unless you pay the rent on my house or wear the black suspenders at the Cinemark, you don't get to tell me what to do.”