The way I look at it, love does not necessarily make for a happy ending any more than winning does. What makes for a happy ending is what Addie said all along: freedom. The freedom to be who you are without anybody calling you names. —Bobby Goodspeed

This business of really knowing people, deep down, including your own self, it is not something you can learn in school or from a book. It takes your whole being to do it—your eyes and your ears, your brain and your heart. Maybe your heart most of all. —Bobby Goodspeed

The point is that something I thought was perfect has been broken, and I'm having to find the beauty in what is there instead of what I thought was there. Like this shell. I can either spend all my time wishing it were perfect, trying to imagine it the way it was or might have been, or I can see how beautiful it is just like this.

Another Thing I'm Sick of Hearing: If I started that gay rights group, I must be gay. So if i start an animal rights group, what does that make me? A giraffe?

And that's an even greater love: to love somebody when he's a little...worn at the edges. —Teddy Bear

A day can start out ordinary and end up being in the top ten. —Joe Bunch

When you're living through it, though, especially when you are twelve and you think the whole world is changing until you realize it isn't the world, it's you, no piece seems little. It's all so big you think it can kill you. But it doesn't. Which is why the story goes on.