Bruiser

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

What's the point of living if you're going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don't shut it away.

If your heart tells you something but your mind tells you something else, which do you believe? Both are just as apt to lie. In fact, they play at deceit all the time. Mostly they balance each other, giving us that crucial reality check. But what happens on the rare occasions when they conspire together?

How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

I'll never understand how a man can live his life With his finger on the self-destruct button, Holding it there day after day, Blinded by an obsession to press it But lacking the conviction to do even that.

It's strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don't you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it's only good the second time if it's the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you.

But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel their own pain--and as awful as that is, it's also wonderful.

In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse's head, blocking the creature's peripheral vision. They're called blinders. They don't actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what's right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race. People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don't even know they're there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we'd lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We'd see, we'd hear, we'd feel so deeply that we might never resurface. So we make our decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we're seeing only one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.

Happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is a vector, it is movement.

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

The thing was, if I had found a way to escape- even for just a little while- I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.

It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy

It's amazing how people can surprise you.

You are so obtuse!" Brontë says, exasperated. I am calm in my response. "Do you mean stupid, or angular? You need to be more specific with your insults.

When it comes to such open-heart reflection, I'm a firm believer in the observer effect, which states that anything you try to observe is automatically changed by the mere fact that you're looking at it. The way I see it, if you try to study your emotions on a microscopic level, the best you can do is understand how it feels to hold the magnifying glass.

The way I see it, the impossible happens all the time; but we're so good at taking it for granted, we forget it was once impossible.

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

What do you do with a textbook case when no one's written the textbook?

Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched out all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?

It's that quirky kind of weekend feeling they write ridiculous sunny-day songs about. You know the ones--I'm sure they're on your iPod even though you'd never admit it.

...You know something, don't you?" "I know lots of things--your inquiry needs to be more specific." "Just answer the question." "True/false or multiple choice?

The way I see it, the impossible happens all the time; but we’re so good at taking it for granted, we forget it was once impossible.

So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie?

As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself." She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual!

Then you'd better listen, because me sounding like Bronte is one of the signs of the apocalypse-and if the end fo the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment day brownie points.

At that moment he could have said the earth was made of chocolate pudding and I would have believed it.

Whoever invented the spork should be killed.