“But he thought about him a lot in the years that followed, whenever anyone made a fag joke or said that gay men deserved to get AIDS. Sometimes, if the circumstances were right, Tim would challenge the speaker, ask if he- in Tim´s experience, it was always a he- had any friends who were gay. Almost always the guy would say no.“Wait till you do” Tim would tell him. “That´s when you´ll realize what an asshole you used to be.”

“and she said, ‘So there you are!’ She asked Frank what he thought he was doing, and he said, ‘Experimenting.’ That’s what Frank always used to say when people asked him what he thought he was doing. He always said, ‘Experimenting.’ (p. 15)”

“They‟re from my best friend,” I said. “They‟re from my best gay friend, Curtis Chapman.” He stood there, frozen, possibly thinking I was joking. “Curtis won‟t be back. He got out… he was saved. He won‟t have to be called names, picked on, tortured, and assaulted anymore. He‟s gone to a different school, and your days of bullying him are over.” “Jon, the kid‟s a fag!” “And he‟s my best friend, and I love him… and so does God”

“You love me,” he said. “That’s all I need to know.” “You always say the right thing,” Savannah told him, her eyes so filled with love that he almost wept. “Sometimes it takes you awhile to get to it, but you always get there, and what you say is always worth waiting for.”

“He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving. ”

“Tim was dead. And he's always been a loser. I'd be damned if I was going to be the victim of a loser - or anyone else.”