After all, memory may be the only thing on earth we can truly manipula — Steve Toltz

"You never hear about a sportsman losing his sense of smell in a tragic accident, and for good reason; in order for the universe to teach excruciating lessons that we are unable to apply in later life, the sportsman must lose his legs, the philosopher his mind, the painter his eyes, the musician his ears, the chef his tongue."

"Most of my life I never worked out whether to pity, ignore, adore, judge, or murder my father. His mystifying behavior left me wavering right up until the end."

"Confronting your own assassin is a tricky business; you dont want to trigger your own murder just for the sake of getting something off your chest."

"Even ugly people know beauty when they dont see it."

"No one listened to me. Caroline and I stood together as they dragged Terry away to a mental asylum. I looked at my parents incredulously, at their inexorably tepid souls. All I could do was uselessly shake a clenched fist and think how people are so eager to become slaves that its unbelievable. Christ. Sometimes they throw off their freedom so quickly, youd think it was burning them."

"I took a step closer to the edge. High in the trees I could hear the sounds of birds. They werent chirping, they were just moving around making everything rustle. Down near the earth brown beetles were rummaging in the dirt, not thinking about death. It didnt seem to me Id be missing out on much. Existence is humiliating anyway. If Someone was watching us build, decay, create, degenerate, believe, and wither as we do, hed never stop laughing. So why not? What do I know about suicide? Only that it is a melodramatic act, as well as an admission that the heat is too hot so Im getting out of this crazy kitchen. And why shouldnt a fourteen-year-old commit suicide? Sixteen-year-olds do it all the time. Maybe Im just ahead of my time. Why shouldnt I end it all?"