“To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?”

“Lizzie Bright Griffin, do you ever wish the world would just go ahead and swallow you whole?""Sometimes I do," she said, and then smiled. "but sometimes I figure I should just go ahead and swallow it.”

“Love is a big and wonderful idea, but life is made up of small things. As a kid, you have nothing to do with the way the world is run; you just have to hurry to catch up with it.”

“..this is just like life must be for about 99 percent of the people in the world. You're in this place. There's other people all around you, but they don't understand you and you don't understand them, but people do a lot of pointless babbling anyway. In order to stay alive, you have to spend all day every day doing stupid meaningless work. And the only way to get out of it is to quit, cut loose, take a flyer, and go off into the wicked world, where you will be swallowed up and never heard from again.”

“Life just swallows you up, doesn't it?Just swallows you up with its everyday things”

“I will never marry you. I will never have sex with you voluntarily. And the day you touch me without permission will be the day you swallow your own testicles whole. Do you understand?”