This was what I liked most about my friends: just sitting around and telling stories. Window stories and mirror stories. I only listened - the stories on my mind weren't that funny.
Such was life that morning: nothing really mattered that much, not the good things and not the bad ones. We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous." (pg. 18)
For so long, I hadn't really Margo - I'd seen her screaming and thought her laughing - that now I figured it was my job. To try, even at this great remove, to hear the opera of her.
High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.
On time for us was thirty minutes before actually started, because the half hour before the first bell was the highlight of our social calendars: standing outside the side door that led into the band room and just talking.
Dude, I don’t want to talk about Lacey’s prom shoes. And I’ll tell you why: I have this thing that makes me really uninterested in prom shoes. It’s called a penis.
Chuck Parson did not participate in organized sports, because to do so would distract from his larger goal of his life: to one day be convicted of murder
The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.
I can almost imagine a happiness without her, the ability to let her go, to feel our roots are connected even if I never see that leaf of grass again.
The last time I was this scared, I peed myself." "The last time I was this scared," Radar says, "I actually had to face a Dark Lord in order to make the world safe for wizards.
The fundamental mistake I had always made-and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make-was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.
I had not cried for Margo until then, but now finally I did, pounding against the ground and shouting because there was no on to hear: I missed her I missed her I missed her I miss her.
As far as I can tell, there are two basic (kissing) rules: 1. Don't bite anything without permission. 2. The human tongue is like wasabi: it's very powerful, and should be used sparingly.
You had been a paper boy to me all these years - two dimensions as a character on the page and two different, but still flat, dimensions as a person. But that night you turned out to be real.
He just waited until I stopped talking and said, 'Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives. So what's your theory?
A blanket could be folded up and kept in the trunk of my car, in much the same way that I do with the Chinese gymnastics team before I chauffer them around town.
The woman I love rolled through town yesterday, and she didn’t even stop her wheelchair once as she passed through. I got so angry I had to walk it off.
She smiled as though someone had just offered her, the oldest virgin in town, a fully functioning Kingsize Vibro vibrator and a deluxe inhibition bypass.
The more Christian you are in this town, the more makeup you wear. I've always thought that it's because if you were to die suddenly, you'd look better for God.
When I was a kid, we didn't eat in restaurants much, but a good report card meant my sister or I could choose anyplace in town for a dinner out, and I always picked Benny's, a dive bar near the train station, because they had the best nachos around.
It was a time of dark dreams. They washed in like flotsam on the night tide, slipping beneath doorways and window latches, rising through the streets and hills; and the little fishing-town of Scarlock foundered deep.
