“I don't need to eat the stuff now because now I'm here-right in the middle of it!The soup I ordered in Colorado had all these little slices of vegetables and things, which at the time just looked like kitchen scrapings to me. But now I'm in the miso soup myself,just like those bits of vegetable. I'm floating around in this giant bowl of it, and that's good enough for me.”

“I'm just going to be really honest right now because this is all new to me and I don't know how else to handle it." He takes a deep breath and pushes the air off his forehead. "I like being around you. I like talking to you. When I'm not with you, I'm thinking about you.”

“I just wanted you to know I'd be chasing after you right now, naked if need required it. But because I'm respecting your need for time and space, I'll force myself to lie here in bed and pretend I'm asleep.”

“She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it.”

“Right now you're all staring at me like you're shocked. Because I'm not as 'smart' as Jacy, or as 'arty' as Ali, or as 'cool-looking as Clarissa. You think I don't know anything-""That's not true," I say loyally.Sonya waves it aside. "I'm not mad. I'm just saying, People look at me and think, 'boring fat chick.' They do, I know. But they don't realize I read Philosophy books and other hard stuff. Even your best friends might not know your deepest secrets.”

“Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.”