“Dr. Clair looked at Layton. The mancala pieces were still in her hand.If Angela Ashforth ever says anything like that to you again, you tell her that just because she's insecure about being a little girl in a society that puts an inordinate amount of pressure on little girls to live up to certain physical, emotional and ideological standards -- many of which are improper, unhealthy and self-perpetuating -- doesn't mean she has to take her misplaced self-loathing out on a nice boy like you. You may be inherently a part of the problem but that doesn't mean you aren't a nice boy with nice manners and it certainly doesn't mean you have AIDS."I'm not sure I can remember all that," Layton said.Well then, tell Angela that her mother is a white trash drunk from Butte.”

“I had trouble listening to adults who didn't really mean anything that they said; it was as if their language poured into my ears only to drain right out a little spigot in the back of my head.”

“Do you ever get the feeling like you already know the entire contents of the universe somewhere inside of your head, as if you were born with a complete map of this world already grafted onto the folds of your cerebellum and you are just spending your entire life figuring out how to access this map?”

“I would not know what to say to you, except this: there was never a map that got it all right, and truth and beauty were never married to one another for long.”

“What happened to all the historical detritus in the world? Some of it made it into drawers of museums, okay, but what about all those old postcards, the photoplates, the maps on napkins, the private journals with little latches on them? Did they burn in house fires? Were they sold at yard sales for 75¢? Or did they all just crumble into themselves like everything else in this world, the secret little stories contained within their pages disappearing, disappearing, and now gone forever.”

“I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded vision trying to realize our perfection," he says. At critical moments in the book, T.S. registers his inkling of this realization. When he makes his maps, it feels like taking down dictation from the universe.”

“I know about love. I know about wanting and dreaming and wishing with every piece of your soul. I know enough to recognize the parts that are real and the parts that are only fantasy.' ... 'Like when she cries and my heart tears into little shreds and all I can think about is making her forget the source of her saddness.' ... 'Thats real.' ... 'And fantisy?' 'Believing she might ever feel the same way.' ... 'Why didn't you tell her? The girl you love. Why didn't you tell her how you feel?' ... 'Because,' ... 'she doesn't want to know.”