“You punched him by accident.”

“Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.'Are those the only options?'Not always. Just sometimes.”

“As if he was beating me to the punch, his words living forever, while I was left speechless, no rebuttal, no words left to say.”

“We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.”

“You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.''You're a freak is what you are,' I said.He stuck out his hand. 'Come on, slugger. Walk with me. You know you want to.'And the thing was, despite everything I knew-that it was a mistake, that he was different from the others-I did. How he knew that, I had no idea. But I got up and did it anyway.”

“If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.”

“Even if you do make tons of new friends,” I told him, “try not to forget where you came from, okay?”