“I’m not going to be able to sleep a wink tonight.I hate shelters.People coughing and snoring and hacking up who-knows-what.It’s a nightmare.But I do have clean teeth.”

“I am a runner. That's what I do. That's who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.”

“Now, I know from experience that the trouble with one lie is that it usually takes more lies to cover it up.  And if you don't watch out, you wind up telling lies to cover up the lies that are covering up the original lie. ”

“A million dollars sounds like a lot, I know. Especially when you're young. But you can't let money erode your principles or you'll wind up with nothing.”

“And then she started climbing/ The girl is in the seventh grade, and she's climbing a tree--way, way up in the tree. And why does she do it? So she can yell down at us that the bus is five! four! three blocks away! Blow-by-blow traffic watch from a tree--what every kid in junior high feels like hearing first thing in the morning. She tried to get me to come up there with her, too. "Bryce, come on! You won't believe the colors! It's absolutely magnificent! Bryce, you've got to come up here!" Yeah, I could just hear it: "Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree..." Was I ever going to leave the second grade behind?”

“(Actually now I’m remembering that the goodbye chow isn’t spelled that way. It’s ciao or something weird like that. It’s Italian, right? But I’m not an Italian gypsy, I’m a hungry gypsy. So spelling it chow makes total sense.)”

“But in my heart I knew the old Bryce was toast. There was no going back. Not to Garrett or Shelly or Miranda or any of the other people who wouldn't understand. Juli was different, but after all these years that didn't bother me anymore.I liked it.I liked her.”