Quotes from Jo Knowles

I stand here, looking at it. At my new life. No more people staring at me when I walk down the hall. No more whispers behind my back. No one knows me here. No one knows what happened. What I did. I just have to get through the year, get into college someplace far away, and leave for good.

It's hard living with eternal optimists. No matter how many times life craps on them, they wipe it off their faces and smile. I seem to be the only one who has accepted the truth: there is nothing around that corner but more crap.

I touch the fuzzy letter I. The pins he's earned for varsity and captain. This is what we care about. How many pins we have. We want to be MVPs. The most valuable of all. What's so wrong with that? It's stupid, Beth would say. That's what's wrong with it.

It makes me want to cry. Sometimes, when someone is nice to you for no reason but when you need it most, that happens.

Let's change the world, I want to say to her. I know you don't know me, but let's hijack this bus and go protest something. I don't even care what. I just feel like yelling. I just feel like caring about something.

A family sitting in the TV light, staring at a flat box containing something more interesting than their entire darkened house. Than their entire neighborhood, entire city. Surrounded by the world, but focused on a box.

Now my life has shifted. But instead of feeling glad or excited, I feel lost. I didn't realize how alone alone would feel.

Why do people want to be so skinny? What do they think will happen when they reach their size-zero goal? What happens at zero? Zero means there's nothing left. Why does she want to disappear?

Grace's boyfriend's parties became more important than trying to find ourselves. Maybe it's because we became afraid of what we'd find.

It's not that I want a tragic life. I'm lucky I have nothing to worry about. Nothing. And that is what I feel.