“The lawn of Placerville High School is a very good one. It does not fuck around.”

“They had become a fixed star in the shifting firmament of the high school's relationships, the acknowledged Romeo and Juliet. And she knew with sudden hatefulness that there was one couple like them in every white suburban high school in America.”

“High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.”

“How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?"If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?"Mrs. Tassenbaum smiled. "Touché. He is readable, I'll give him that - tells a good story...”

“Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.”

“But in high school the business of irrevocable choices began. Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heared clearly in the dreams of later years.”

“He tilted back in the decaying lawn chair, almost went over on his back, and used up some more of his screwdriver. The screwdriver was in a glass he had gotten free from a McDonald's restaurant. There was some sort of purple animal on the glass. Something called a Grimace. Gary ate a lot of his meals at the Castle Rock McDonald's, where you could still get a cheap hamburger. Hamburgers were good. But as for the Grimace... and Mayor McCheese... and Monsieur Ronald Fucking McDonald... Gary Pervier didn't give a shit for any of them.”