“Of course I remember you." My voice is a strangled whisper. I squeeze my eyes shut. "You were the only one who ever looked at me like a human being.”

“Of course I remember you. You were the only one who ever looked at me like a human being.""You've always known?""Adam, I'd recognize your eyes anywhere in the world.”

“Sir, can you hear me?" Another cry. But this time, a voice I don't detest."Sire, please, can you hear me-""I've been shot, Delalieu," I manage to say. I open my eyes. Look into his watery ones. "I haven't gone deaf.”

“This pen is my only outlet, my only voice, because I have no one else to speak to, no mind but my own to drown in and all the lifeboats are taken and all the life preservers are broken and I don’t know how to swim I can’t swim I can’t swim and it’s getting so hard. It’s getting so hard. It’s like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what’s the point of screaming if you’ll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in here. No one will ever hear me again.”

“There was something about my face,she said, that she couldn't stand. Something about my eyes, the way I looked at her, the fact I even existed. She'd always tell me to stop looking at her. She'd always scream it. Like I might attack her. Stop looking at me, she'd scream. You just stop looking at me, she'd scream.She put my hand in the fire once.Just to see if it would burn, she said. Just to check if it was a regular hand, she said.I was 6 years old then.I remember because it was my birthday.”

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji?""What?" He looks mortally offended. "Do I look like the kind of guy who's never had a girlfriend? Have you even met me?”