Barry Lyga Quotes

You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror.

This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore.

Medicine cabinets are dangerous. Those doors, man. They'll just spring on you like a ninja.

Anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth.

[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.

What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster?

What was the opposite of linkage blindness? What described being certain of something without any kind of evidence? ...The term was faith.

And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we're us.

Jazz hadn't given her many details of exactly what life in the Dent house had been like, but he'd told her enough that she knew it wasn't hearts and flowers. Well, except for the occasional heart cut from a chest. And the kind of flowers you send to funerals.

See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event -- it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope.

We humans have the capacity to wreak horrors on each other. But we also have the capacity to survive those horrors.

He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he's tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend's hair. Ever.

One time you told me that the opposite of love isn't hate. And I didn't understand that, but I think I do know. Because if you hate someone, you most still care, right? You have to care a little bit; otherwise you would just ignore them and forget they even live. Or lived.

I’m a complicated man, with complicated taste buds.

...called nine-one-one," Howie was saying, "and then I heard something in the alleyway, so I went back there and" --Howie coughed-- "and valiantly attacked his knife with my guts, to no avail." "Did you get a good look at him? Could you describe him?" Howie smiled wanly. "Yeah. He was about yay long" --he held up his hands, four inches apart-- "thin, made of steel. Pointy. Sharp.

Anger was a waste of time and energy. Anger was useless."Anger" was the label given to the emotion that accomplished nothing.

Jazz spent a chunk of the day fantasizing about ways to kill his grandmother, plotting them and planning them in the most excruciating, gruesome detail his imagination would allow. It turned out his imagination allowed quite a bit. He spent the rest of the day convincing himself--over and over--not to do it.

Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.

Don’t crap where you eat

And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll just take them with me.... Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?

A river of images and thoughts and feelings, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging.

We can know what love is. It´s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure Love. Love without compromise or distraction.

I just have an allergic reaction to lung cancer. Gives me tumors.

It's not an easy choice, but that's OK. Easy doesn't equal good. Difficulty doesn't equal bad. It's just life, is all.

Pain means you're alive. Pain is good. Pain is life.

. . . but there's a restraining order in place.' She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. 'I'm not supposed to be this close to you.' You were never supposed to be this close to me,' I say, and I have no idea why.

She screamed. Her screaming was beautiful. But, truth be told he missed the crying.

Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world.

I don't know and I don't care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it. I want to kill them all. no, better yet, I want to die. No, even bettter than that: I want to kill them all then die.

Fear can keep you alive. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you. Not to let it rule you. If you’re afraid, that’s the universe trying to tell you something. Get away. Don’t run; don’t panic. Just pick up and walk out, calm as you please. Panic makes you stupid.

If I think she' hot and it turns out she's a psychopath, then what does that say about me? I'm totally not ready for that kind of therapy.

I do what I've trained my whole life to do. I watch the ball. I keep my eye on the ball. I never stop watching. I watch it as it sails past me and lands in the catcher's mitt, a perfect and glorious strike three.

What's it like to go looking for your soul, only to learn you never had one to begin with?

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.

The best revenge is living well, my dad told me once.

Look, my dad has a saying - we'll burn that bridge when get to it. OK? You get it? Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is.

It's like this," he'd explained once to Connie. "If someone gave you a single rose, you'd be happy, right?" "Okay," he went on, "Now imagine someone gives you ten thousand roses." "That is a whole lotta roses," she said. "That's too much." "Right. Too much. But more than that, it makes each individual rose much less special, right? It makes it hard to pick one out and say, 'That's the good one.' And it makes you want to just get rid of them all because none of them seem special now." Connie had narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying when you're at school you just want to get rid of everyone?

You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting across just gets you to the hospital. That's just from movies and TV shows and stuff like that. You didn't really try to kill yourself. you just wanted attention, but you screwed up. Try harder next time.

Yes, pain meant life. But the symmetric property did not apply; Life did not mean pain.

Yes,” Howie said solemnly. “I can teach you how to be more ‘street’”. “For God’s sake…” “Or is it ‘urban’? I can’t remember. Anyway, I can teach you, grasshopper. Or hip-hopper.

Special kinda warm,

It's a good day when a goddess gets on the school-bus with you.

(Man, I wish life had emoticons, you know? So that when your dad pisses you off you could like click a mental button or something and just show him one of those rolleyes. That would rock) Anyway.

And it's true. It's so true. All those years of loving Zik because he never asked about Eve... I never realized, I never understood. It was his job as my best friend not to ask. But it was my job as his best friend to tell him without being asked.

I suddenly realize that I'm naked, which shouldn't bother me since it's the phone, but for some reason it does. "How's it hanging?" Kyra asks and now I think I'm blushing. It's just an expression, but jeez!

You can't rely on love. Love will let you down every time. Every. Single. Time. I don't love Jecca. I don't love Fanboy. But... God, the buts in life will kill you absolutely every time, won't they. I don't love. But I need. I can admit that to myself.

You know how that goes, G. William,” Jazz said lightly. “If you outlaw police scanners, only outlaws will have police scanners.

Unreal. I'm feeling nostalgic for something that happened less than twenty-four hours ago. This has got to be a record.

And I think of nothing. I think of nothing but Rachel. What happens next is pure magic, and is for us and us alone.

Psychologist: "This, ah, is a new sort of, ah, psychopathology that we're only now beginning to, ah, understand. These, ah, super-serial killers have no, ah, 'type' but, ah, rather consider everyone to be their 'type.'" Gramma: "Did you hear that? Your daddy's a superhero!

And Jazz snapped. He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person. Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze. In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father). "Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am.

The world pretty much sucks most of the time. But the point of life isn’t to live in a world that doesn’t suck. The point is to try to make it suck a little bit less.

Even the lies were true.

How do i know that what I see as blue and what you see as blue are the same thing? Answer: We don't. We take it on faith.

You don’t break up with someone just because of an argument, Josh. At least, I don’t.

When you feel like things are out of control, you take control. Yeah, that's what you do. Take control. So, yeah. Oh, yeah.

In a way, i feel sorry for boys. They're weak. You show them boobs or a butt and they just fall apart. But I feel sorry for girls, too. Because girls get screwed, even when they're not naked with a guy. Everyone hates girls--even other girls. I mean, "girl" is like an insult, you know? "That's so girly." "Stop being a girl." "You're like a little girl." Hey, you know what? I was a little girl once and I kicked ass. I was awesome.

We can know what love is. It’s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure love. Love without compromise or distraction. Hell, when you’re a kid you’ve got all the energy and all the free time in the world. You’ll never have the chance to devote more to love ever again in your life.

Not according to this," Jazz said, taking the report. "No evidence of sexual activity or anything like it." "Well, there's that," Howie said, sounding relieved. Jazz wondered at that - was it really so much better to be unmolested, but still murdered in a horrible fashion? To die in pain and terror, stripped, left in a field, your fingers cut off? But as long as you weren't raped, well, that was alright, then? Did it really matter at that point?

People can wonder and ponder and imagine all they want. But their curiosity does not entitle them to enter my world.

You don't swing at any pitch. You swing at the ones you can hit.

Cars are little privacy cocoons that we take with us. If you could refuel while driving you could, theoretically, stay moving forever.

Homecoming's stupid." And it is. Buch of kids looking for excuses to grope eachother all night.

And if it's locked, I'll knock it the hell down." He thinks when he busts out "hell" I take him more seriously. Yeah. Insert eye roll here.

...She's not buying [the lie], but there's nothing else on the shelves.

If you don't feel anything, you can't be hurt.

Here’s the thing about baseball-it’s not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that. Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter’s box like a soldier and it’s up to him-and him alone-what happens next. But here’s the thing I didn’t understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run… Someone else has to pitch the ball.

It just means that if someone hates you, they still have feelings for you. If they really didn't care about you, they'd just forget about you. They wouldn't even waste the time hating you.

Your words hurt, Jazz. They hurt like cotton balls thrown in my direction.

He easily gathered her in his arms; Gramma was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy - and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.

I'm not sure which is worse--being born to it or learning it.

Someone's on the rag," she chides, then grabs her crotch as if adjusting a cup. "And it's not me.

You can't rely on love. Love will let you down every time. Every. Single. Time.

It was an ugly day. It was an ugly room. Except for the body.

He thought for a moment. About puppets. About being controlled. Everyone was controlled by something, the Impressionist knew. By a spouse. A parent. A boss. A friend. By one’s own impulses, be they dark or light. Everyone was a puppet to something. Most people just couldn’t see the strings, is all. And so they didn’t believe they were puppets in the first place.

Kevin: 'Hey, Dad. How do you stop people from being stupid?' Dad: 'You don't.' Kevin: 'Really?' Dad: 'I've tried to explain to people when they're being stupid, but then I realized something: Most people like being stupid.' Kevin: 'I don't get it.' Dad: 'Some people just prefer it. It makes their lives easier if they let other people think for them.' Kevin: 'But that doesn't make sense. That's just stu...Oh...

Don't be stupid. You're a child. You don't know what it means to be in love." And she flung open the car door as if she wished she had the strength to rip it from the hinges, and stalked off to the house through the rain. That night, I lay in bed, troubled by what she'd said, blocking out the sounds of argument from my parents' room. Was love what my parents had? Yelling at eachother, worrying about money? Never smiling? Never happy? If that was love, then I didn't want it.

At the end of the day, it's a series of individual challenges played out against a team defense. It's a psersonal test every time I step into the batter's box: Can I do better than the last time? And that's why I love it.

Oh, that was smooth. I'm as subtle as a fart.

He wasn't just dead; he was severely dead. He was one of the deadest people Hughes had ever seen, and Hughes had seen quite a few.

Once he gets inside your head, you're dead.

At least you'll be alive to hate me.

It was like playing checkers, only to learn that your opponent was playing chess all along.

I taught you everything you know, but not everything I know.

You're next.

How do I know that what I see as blue and what you see as blue are the same thing? Answer: We don't. We take it on faith.

He fucked my wife!" George wailed. "He ruined my life!" "Your wife was a goddamn whore!

Length isn’t as important as what you say and how you say it.

Love makes you weak. This I know for sure. Mom loved Roger. Roger loved Mom.And look what happpened there. She died. She thought her love made her strong. She kept telling me-after she was diagnosed-she ket telling me, "I'm going to beat this Kyra. I'm going to come out of it. I love you and I love your father and that love is my strength. You're my strength.

I'm strong thanks to you, Kyra. You're my strength." And who the hell was she to put that burden on me? I was her strength? Then what did that mean as the cancer ate her from the inside out? What did that mean as she got weaker and weaker and weaker? When the cancer migrated her brain and made her forget things and space out randomly? You can't rely on other people to be your strength. You have to be your own strength.

This isn't 'I do something for you, you do something for me'. This is hard-core friendship. Varsity level. This is me asking you to do something for me without getting anything in return. This is friendship, Howie.

They put on fresh gloves and got back to business. Jazz wiped up the blood splatters in the freezer and tossed the tissues in with Howie’s waste. It bothered him that he was leaving evidence behind without some sort of oxygenated bleach, those blood splatters would still show up under Luminol. Of course, the odds of anyone deciding to spray down the morgue freezer and switch on an ultraviolet light were pretty minimal, so it’s not like it was evidence that anyone would ever find or use. Still: Billy Dent’s First Commandment was “Thou shalt not leave evidence.

There were dragons, in his dreams, as though some part of him knew the trials were not yet over, that there were battles yet to be fought. He slept fitfully, fidgeting, tossing and turning, groaning and crying out in his sleep.

(O)ur lives are the sum of our mistakes as well as our triumphs...

Luck, though, as Billy had said it so many times, was like lightning--it struck sinners and saints in equal measure, and it did to on its time-table, not yours.

Violence suits you.

He had to do it in secret. He didn't want people to think he was buying forgiveness or understanding. Those two things should not be for sale, at any price.

He realized he'd spent his life trying to understand Billy. But had never really understood himself.

I was going to bake you a cake with a hacksaw in it," he said without preamble, " but-" "But you realized it wouldn't work." "Well, no. I realized I don't know how to bake.

Billy always survived. Like a cockroach. The world's smartest, meanest, craziest cockroach.

We all do stupid things, Conscience. If they don't kill us, they weren't stupid enough, I guess.

Zik spits into the dirt in from of home plate, his own little ritual. He digs in and grits his teeth, snarling at the Heat. Psychology. Baseball's all about psychology.

It's just a base hit, people. It means nothing unless we put a string of them together.

I won't let myself be used or manipulated. I won't let myself be a hypocrite. I am foe me. I am not weak. For anyone.

I'm still not ready to believe time heals wounds, but I think maybe something else does. We heal wounds. Not time. Us.

Nice is the white bread of the English language adjective breadbox. It’s tasteless, bland, and forgettable.

Dr. Kennedy talked me out of killing myself--for now--without saying a single words or even knowing what was going on. Which, I've decided, is the mark of a totally kick-ass therapist.

There was some kind of X-men emergency, so all the teachers were gone. This happens every now and then. It's one of the perks of having super heroes for your teachers - when the world is about to end (which is like at least twice a month), school gets canceled. Heck, three weeks ago there was a big chemistry final for the upperclassmen. Beast was the teacher - he's this big, burly guy who can do acrobatic stuff like a monkey, but he also happens to be a super-genius. He's, like, legendary for his tough finals, so there were kids walking through the halls, going, "Oh, God, please let Galactus try to eat the earth. Please please please let there be an alien invasion by the Skrulls!

But it's high school. It's not real love, or at least you can't be sure it's real love. Real love is messy and complicated and brutal. It's been tested. Zik and Michelle have never been tested by anything mroe than being separated by a couple of classes.

But Billy had done good deeds all the time. So had John Wayne Gacy, and dozens of others. It didn’t matter. It was all part of the disguise. Jazz realized that he couldn’t trust even his noblest impulses. They might not be genuine. They might just be camouflage.

Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing I hate: His concern is like a really warm drink when your body is cold, and you feel it go all the way down your throat and then into your stomach, where it pools and spreads out. But the problem is, that cold is good. Cold is numb. And when you're numb, you can't feel pain. You can't feel pain until some stupid warm drink makes you not numb anymore and then you can feel again.

He turns to the Council. 'Sounds like Foolish behavior to me, boys. I hereby nominate the human race for membership in the Council of Fools!' He raises both arms and shouts to the sky. 'Humanity! Join us! Join your masters! All opposed, say nay!" And then nothing but silence and Flip's panting as he strains, listening. 'There are no dissenting votes!' he cries. 'I hereby admit humanity to the Council of Fools!' He punches the air in triumph. 'Dude,' he says, grinning, 'I just upped our membership by six billion. Not bad, huh?

Hell is being alone.

I’m going to die. This is how I’m going to die, and this is where I’m going to die. Because I did all the stupid things you yell at stupid people for doing in stupid movies.

I have to stop getting shot

For a fat guy, G. William sure could sustain a long burst of screaming and yelling.

Thanks to the very best in Microsoft/Intel engineering, it crashes every time you exhale too hard in its general vicinity. --Fanboy on his computer

Jazz opened his eyes. Conner opened her eyes. Howie opened his eyes.

The pain would find him. The pain always found him.

You're not smart enough to be afraid of me.

That last voice in his head. It hadn't been Billy's. It was his own.

Today she told me about the Crow King.

His safe haven had turned into an ambush.

Like a serial killer, the house blended in. It suited its place and its place suited it.

Yes, pain meant life. But life did not mean pain.

It all happened. It wasn't a dream. And I'm still alive. I guess that's something.

Jazz felt as though his own life was a mindfield, one he'd lost the map for. One wrong step and he'd lose a foot or leg. or his mind.

But you know, sometimes the fight itself is worthwile, even if the prize at the end ain't.

Teens had the world's best built-in poker face: a hormone-fueled, constant glare of bored contempt.

Fate comes in and sweeps us all like a big broom, you hear? And the dust goes flyin' and it lands where it lands, and we get no say in the matter.

Howie swore translated to “I am strong and mighty in the wind,” but which Jazz feared actually translated to “Another dumbass white kid with Asian tats. LOL.

I'm such a sleep pussy.

I usually tug my helmet's brim once, then push it back up into position, but I'm not wearing a helmet. I'm embarrassed to find myself miming the action through sheer muscle memory.

My heart went into triple time, like that burst you get when you realize the ball is going over the heads of all the outfielders.

To fool people, you have to work with their prejudices instead of against them.

Disappointment is part of parenthood, Jasper. The trick is learnin' to love your kids even when they disappoint you.

There's a difference between what you'll do in your mind and what you'll actually do for real.

He didn't dislike New York with the simple diffidence of a small-town kid or the tragic ignorance of a yokel--he hated it with what he hoped was his soul.

At least he took the rest of the food I brought him. A growing boy fighting his insane father to the death has to keep the calorie count up there. Fighting to the death is sweaty work.

That you I feel up in my brain, trying to rummage around inside my head, rearrange the furniture? I don't think that'll work. I taught you everything you know, but not everything I know.

Can they, like get fingerprints from her neck? Can they catch the guy that way?” “This guy isn’t an amateur. He probably used gloves.” “How do you know he isn’t an amateur, Sherlock?” “There’s bruising on the left-hand knuckles, and on the sides of both hands. Probably would be on the right-hand knuckles, too, if we had them.” “She hit him,” Howie said. “She fought back.

The best way to support the troops is to not send them off to die in the first place. And the second best way to support them only to send them off to die when you absolutely have to. And the only way to know that you've done that is to talk about it, debate it, examine it, and make damn sure.

him jump a little inside whenever they roamed his way. Her hair—off-limits to touch, but not to his other senses—entranced him, jet black, shoulder-length, tightly coiled like powerful springs, smelling slightly of chemicals and cinnamon, the beads at the end of each braid clicking together as she walked.

I can't stop you from killing yourself. If that's what you truly want, no one can stop you. I can't be around twenty-four hours a day, looking after you. But if that's what you want, don't you think you owe it to your mother to talk to her first?

The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.

You know the expression 'As a crow flies,' don't you? People use it to mean a straight line. And that's very important. Because the way a capital-c Crow flies is a straight line. It may appear jagged to some, but the Crow flies in a straight line to its goal.

In baseball, when you get into the batter's box, that's it. It's just you. It's one man against the world. All that matters in that moment is your individual achievement and your individual skill. There is literally nothing that anyone else on your team can do for you. Hell, they're all sitting on the bench, waiting to see what happens, just like the fans in the crowd! It's just you and your bat. And the ball.

I don't believe in writer's block. Writer's block is when you're running down an ally and all of a sudden you're trapped by a brick wall. You can't go under, over, or through it. You're stuck. But the problem isn't that you can't pass the brick wall. You see, the problem is that you went down the wrong ally.

Like the games. I love these old games. The simplicity of them. You master them. You play them. You play until you lose. There are no complicated button combos or secret cheat codes or hidden trophies to collect. The achievement lies in lasting as long as you can, until you die. Like life. Last as long as you can. Hold on as long as possible. And there's no shame in losing, because everyone loses. It's just that everyone has a different score. And the scores don't really matter after all. They disappear when you turn the game.

All I have to do is wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, Jazz. Everything else is optional.

Popular culture woefully underprepares us for actual therapy.

Life amuses me, Jasper. Until it don’t no more.” He grinned. “When you’re a happy guy, you find amusement in all kinds of places. Even in here.

Like that. It's all right. It's not all right. It's right.

Any man worth having will wait for his woman to be ready. How can I not return the favor?

Ginny Davis—poor, dead Ginny—had lent Connie a set of yoga DVDs that looked like they’d come from the ancient 1990s.

Well, of course it was Billy screwing with his mind. That's what Billy did. Dear Old Dad had a PhD in mind screwing. The question was, was it just Billy screwing with his mind?

According to the report, Jane Doe stood no more than five foot one—when standing was still possible. A killer’s dream victim. You couldn’t custom-order one better.

fail fast and move on

You can never completely escape your DNA.

I just need a second to collect myself. Just a —listen to me!— —fucking ruined my life!— Just a second.

Less than I want. More than I deserve.

She strokes my cheek. "Don't hate yourself, sweetheart. It gets you nothing. It gets you nowhere.

Somethings are private. And they should stay that way and they get to stay that way. This isn't preschool; I don't have to share.

He wondered if all kids-if normal kids-had this moment of epiphany, this sudden sensation of understanding that their parents weren't gods, weren't even kings. They were just people.

A guy next to me sees the massive bruise on my arm. "God, what a wuss! You got bruised from playing dodge ball?" I look at him, and I realize that I don't know him. I don't even recognize him from walking through the halls or assemblies. I couldn't tell you what grade he's in or what classes he takes. So why does he even bother? Why does he even bother being mean to me?

Parents get all focused on themselves, and they see their little babies start walkin' and talkin', and since they kinda look like them and sound like the, they start thinking of those little babies as themselves....And then something funny happens. Those babies grow up to be kids and teenages and grown-ups in their own right....so everything the kids do, everything, is a betrayal.

...rarely do the 'significant events' in our lives change us. At least, not in any way we want. The people who suffer tragedy and go on to greatness? They're the stuff of movies and TV shows and books, and--only very rarely--real life. Most of us just go on, the walking wounded, dealing with our lives. This doesn't make us bad--it just means we're not superheroes. It means we're just people, like everyone else.

[...] I think, "I can do this. I think I can do this. I think I can make it through the summer. One last summer. That's not so bad, right?" In bed, the voice says nothing, but its silence tells me everything.

Mom's already dead!" I yelled at him. "Who the hell do you think you're saving?" And he just gave me his Sad, Tired look. It's one of the three he's got, the other two being Pissed Off and Blised Out on ESPN.

Howie cleared his throat. “Man, are you sure about this? What if the whole thing was just an accident? Like, what if it was just two people out in the field? Like, having sex and stuff? And she hits her head or has a heart attack or something and the guy is scared, so he runs away.” “And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? ‘Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I’ll take them with me…. Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?

She knew all about the cops and their trigger fingers and their predilection for dealing with those who would attack their brethren. Her father had drummed such stories into her from a young age; more so into Whiz, who bore the burden of being a black boy about to grow into a black teen. "If the police even look at you funny," Dad had said, "you hit the ground and put your hands over your head. Don't talk back. Don't try to run. Don't try to explain. They're just looking for an excuse to shoot you. Don't give it to them.

Howie: "What if the whole thing was just an accident?" Jazz: "And what? Accidentally cut off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll take them with me…Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?

Stop what?” Howie demanded. “Stop loving you, Jazz? I wish I could quit you, but I can’t. Someday, we’ll run off to New York and get married, the way God intended it.” Despite himself, Jasper cracked a grin. “Sorry, man my nips only go out about this far.” He mimed a quarter inch. “Oh, well, in that case, nice to know ya…

Here's the thing: Everyone's different, right? And sure, there are common experiences, but everyone sees the world at least a little differently. Everyone filters it in their own way. You know your...experience, and you know so much more than I'll ever know, but you can't know everyone's experience. Because if you think people are the same, if you think our experiences are interchangeable, well....We are all individuals. People are real. People matter. Each one of us matters, for our differences as much as for our similarities.

Billy Dent stared in the mirror. He didn't quite recognize himself, but that was nothing new. Billy had almost always seen a stranger in mirrors, ever since childhood. At first he had hated and feared the figure that seemed to pursue him everywhere, stalking him through mirrors and store windows. But eventually Billy came to understand that what he saw in the mirror was what other people saw when they looked at him. Other people somehow did not see the real Billy. They saw something that looked like them. Something that looked human and mortal. Something that looked like a prospect.

I need rituals, traditions like this one. Dr. Kennedy used to tell me that getting through life—especially after "a trauma like yours"—is sort of like swinging through the jungle on vines like Tarzan. [...] "Each time you start to lose momentum," Dr. Kennedy would say, "you look ahead to the next vine. And you jump for it, Sebastian. You don't think about it; you don't worry about it. You jump and you trust that you have the strength and the momentum to grasp that next vine." Every time I leap, I think this is the time my reach exceeds my grasp, this is the time my fingers will close on nothing but empty air, and I will plummet into green and the death of the jungle. I'm wrong every time. So far.

For his part, Jazz knew he was handsome. It had nothing to do with looking in the mirror, which he rarely did. It had everything to do with the way the girls at school looked at him, the way they became satellites when he walked by, their orbits contorted by his own mysterious gravity. If attention could be measured like the Doppler effect, girls would show a massive blue shift in his presence. In the last year or so, he had even remarked the scrutiny of older women—teachers, cashiers at stores, the woman who delivered UPS packages to his house. What had once been a maternal flavor in their glances had taken on a lingering, cool sort of appraisal. He could almost hear them thinking, Not yet. But soon. Despite his upbringing, despite the infamy of his father, they still watched him. Or maybe because of it. Maybe Howie was right about bad boys.

I can't believe I fell for it. I can't believe I fooled myself without even trying. That I tricked myself into thinking that I could be happy, that I could be normal, that I could ignore the voice and it would go away, dissipate like smoke in open air. That the voice had gone away, that it ever could go away. And I realize the voice is screaming at me. No longer whispering. More than that, I realize it's been screaming for a while now. I just wasn't paying attention. But now I am. Now I am. "Is it time?" And the voice says, "Yes. Now." It makes perfect sense, suicide does. An end to pain, to misunderstanding. An end to my existence as a walking, talking, living, breathing reminder to my mother of what was taken from her. Why has it taken me so long? What have I let my pathetic excuse for a life drag on this long? I know why. Deep down, I know. I wasn't ready. Not before. Not like I am now. I've been preparing. I haven't been steeling myself for suicide. The suicide is actually the easy part. It's the other thing. The other thing. That's what I've been preparing for.

Women in the presence of their children were the deadliest of the species.

The world is filled with invisible, theoretical assassins, armed projections of our deepest ids, bearing guns loaded with wish-bullets. If you listen closely, you can hear them singing as they whiz by your head, always passing harmlessly through their intended targets.

There had been studies years ago that showed that when you presented consumers with multifarious choices—like, say, fifteen different types and brands of jelly—they had a harder time deciding, took longer to make up their minds, and were less satisfied with their ultimate selection than those who’d chosen from a narrower band of options. Elayah feared buying the wrong jelly. Only the jelly was her life.

Sons aren't their fathers. Not the good, not the bad. Sons get second chances.

Women always cried. It was their last, best weapon. It made boyfriends apologize and husbands fold them in their arms. It made Daddy spend the extra money on the prom dress.

stealth. At

Au contraire, mein Freund.

That's what I thought I was. A stalker of stalkers. A predator preying on predators.

You think you're gonna find your soul. Ever since I've known you, you've been thinkin' that someday you're gonna crack and end up like your daddy. And you're been looking for proof that you won't. What you don't realize is this: the looking is the proof. Trust me when I tell you that Billy Dent never had a moment's doubt in his life about what he was and what he was doing. Your doubt is your soul

They sent spies", Gramma went on, her voice a hush, "and they look like one man, but they can split into two, then four, and so on. I've seen it before. During the war. It's a Communist trick and they taught it to the Democrats so that they could take our guns. I would have fought them off, but they already made the shotgun disappear.

Jazz shook his head. “No. The fingers. Your average murderer doesn’t mutilate a body like that. And he especially doesn’t take trophies. But it’s more than that. It’s that he left one behind. He left the middle one behind.” “Are you serious?” “Yeah. He literally gave the cops the finger. He’s saying, ‘Come and get me. Catch me if you can.’ That’s a serial killer.” For

No matter what his birth certificate said or didn't say, he was Billy Dent's son.

Jazz closed his eyes.

Do you think I was wrong to let that pitch go by?” "Yes. Absolutely." "You're right." "Then why did you---" “Because I didn't know it was wrong until I did it. I had to learn, don't you see? I had to see what would happen when I let my hatred for coach go like that. I had to take control completely, just for once in my life, and see where it led me.

Yeah. No matter what Coach does or doesn't do. Because ... I'm going on my terms. Even if by some miracle he recommends me for the scholarship, I'm not taking it." That surprises her. "I don't get it." "That's why I had no choice but to let that pitch go by. I had to prove to myself that I could live without baseball. I can't go to college on their terms. I can't be the ballplayer first and the student second, and if they're giving me an athletic scholarship, believe me—that's what it would be. Athlete-scholar, not the other way around. No one can convince me otherwise. "So, yeah. I'll have to take out student loans. I'll have to work my ass off. But that's OK.

Barry Lyga is God!

I said, "I don't want you to go." And he said, "I don't want to go either." And I couldn't understand it. If he didn't want to go, then why was he going? Couldn't he just not go, then? [...] I'm tired of it. I'm tired of him. Tired of me. I want it over. I can end it. It's my choice; I'm in control. It's always been my choice, and I've always been in control. [...] "Do it, then!" my father cried, and the voice inside me shouted it at the same time. And I can't. I can only do it by accident. And the gun falls from my numb fingers and I collapse, weeping, into my father's arms.

Why couldn't we be one of those families? Why do we have to be us? "I just want something normal," I tell him. "I just want to feel normal." [...] "I can't stop you from killing yourself. If that's what you truly want, no one can stop you. I can't be around twenty-four hours a day, looking after you. But if that's what you want, don't you think you owe it to your mother to talk to her first?

I don't know." But I do know. Because I was four. Because I understood I'd done something very, very bad. I knew it made people upset and angry. So it was easier to pretend I didn't remember doing it. The kind of logic only a four-year-old can appreciate, the kind of logic I stumble to explain to her. [...] "I hate you!" Her arms locked at her sides, fists clenched, eyes screwed tightly shut, she screams it at the top of her voice. "Are you happy now? Is that what you want to hear? I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU! You killed her! You murdered my little baby girl! I hate you, Sebastian—God, I fucking hate you!" [...] "That's okay," I tell her. [...] I say, "I'm sorry." [...] "Mom, I have to talk about it. I have to, okay? I can't go on like this. I've been—" *thinking of killing myself* is the end of that sentence, but not something I can say to her. Not yet. Not even now. "I've been so sad," I say instead.

People have been telling me that "time heals all wounds" my entire life. I never really believed them—scabs and scars form, I figured, but I didn't imagine that the wounds themselves ever truly healed. They just lurk beneath the new surface, as raw and as sensitive as the day they were made. They're just not visible any longer. They're just not exposed. I'm still not ready to believe time heals wounds, but I think maybe something else does. We heal wounds. Not time. Us.