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Gee was a truth teller: he liked to tell about what he saw, and he saw everything.
It’s like something changes in your brain. They climb in there and take over. They’re the ones in charge. They don’t know it, but they are.”
there’s something I’ve learned in this country, it’s that your address decides everything.
“First, I lose Billy. Then I lose Ray. It’s no good dying, but sometimes I think it’s worse being the one who’s left behind.”
It’s not nice, but sometimes you have to tell people so they can hear.”
It wasn’t quite mean, but it wasn’t sweet either.
“My head hurts,” said Gee. It was his go-to line when he had to explain why he wasn’t coming along for a soda after school, or why he hadn’t raised his hand in class, or why he didn’t want to go and meet some girls. Even when it didn’t work, and people saw that it was a lie, he got what he wanted anyway: to be left alone.
To be a mother was like this: to fight desperately to hold on to yourself most days, to struggle against the snare of your child, to focus on his future instead of your own. And then, suddenly, to feel bowled over by your love
for him, to feel his breath is your breath, your music his music, and you are the same.
“Are you saying I’m wrong?” “What’s it matter if you are? You’ve got to decide whether you’d rather be right, or you’d rather have your daughter.”
“You don’t believe in God?” “I’m mostly interested in this life,” Bailey said. “It’s enough for me.”
He was tired of everyone making excuses for grown-ups who didn’t know how to act.
