“TODD: Well, listen, Neil. I-I appreciate this concern, but I-I'm not like you.All right? You, you, you say things and people listen. I'm, I'm not like that.NEIL: Don't you think you could be? TODD: No! I--I, I don't know, but that's not the point. The, the, the point is that there's nothing you can do about it, so you can just butt out. I can take care of myself just fine. All right? NEIL: No. TODD: What do you mean, "no"? NEIL: No.”

“Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. Isn't that right, Todd? And that's your worse fear.”

“When you read, don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think”

“None of us are going to deny what other people are doing. If saying bullshit is somebody's thing, then he says bullshit. If somebody is an ass-kicker, then that's what he's going to do on this trip, kick asses. He's going to do it right out front and nobody is going to have anything to get pissed off about. He can just say, 'I'm sorry I kicked you in the ass, but I'm not sorry I'm an ass-kicker. That's what I do, I kick people in the ass.' Everybody is going to be what they are, and whatever they are, there's not going to be anything to apologize about. What we are, we're going to wail with on this whole trip.”

“Don't you understand? Listen carefully to what I'm saying. If you do, you'll get it. you can grasp this easily. In short...in short, I shut myself in because I'm lonely. Because I don't want to face any more loneliness, I shut myself away.”

“TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back - "I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead.""Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd.”

“I made promises to you that I'm not sure I can keep. None of it has anything to do with you. It's just that I don't know what to do now. You must be thinking what a rotten person I am. Well, believe me, I'm thinking the same thing. I don't know how this happened or why. Maybe I can get over it. Do you think you can wait—because I don't want you to stop loving me. I keep remembering us and how it was. I don't want to hurt you … not ever …”