Quotes from Gennifer Choldenko

You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Life is amazing, isn't it? You can't ever tell what will happen. Nobody knows until they go ahead and play the game.

Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.

He's the one ought to have his head examined.

We are all born with the ability to make our own choices. But once you make the wrong choice, other people make your decisions for you. 18.

Once when Natalie was little, a doctor told us what she had was contagious. If we kept her at home with us, you could catch it from her. He said we should send her away to a ranch in Arizona where she would be quarantined so as not to infect others.

This is the right thing to do, I tell myself. But I don't believe it. This is another one of my mother's crazy ideas. I feel sick to my stomach. I want to pull my hand away, but I don't. I keep walking. Good Moose. Obedient Moose. I always do what I'm supposed to do.

We've been three people and an octopus all of my life, and now the octopus is gone.

I feel like marching into my parents' room and shaking my mom. How could you send her to that place without her blanket?

Change is hard. It's hard for you, it's hard for me, it's murder on your sister." His voice breaks.

The convicts wash my shirts, as in murderer convicts and kidnapper convicts, and then I'm supposed to wear them?

They darn socks too?" "Yes, as a matter of fact. Do a better job than your mom too. Though don't you dare tell her I said that." "Murderers outsew my mother?" "Apparently so." My dad laughs.

Sometimes it seems easier to be Natalie. People force her to do stuff. I have to force myself.

There's a Lego in my bum which fits with the Lego in my chair and when I sit down to write, I hear the satisfying snap of the two pieces fitting together.

that crazy Hitler guy in Germany who doesn't want Jewish people to compete in the Olympics.

Natalie's not buggy, she just thinks a different way." The words shoot out of me before I can stop them. I know my dad would not like me talking to the warden and Trixle like this. "Is that so?" Trixle asks. "Yes, sir." I nod to the warden. "It is.

Treat a man like a dog, he'll act like a dog. Treat a man with respect, he'll remember that too.

It's like a prison. Okay, it is a prison. There's the problem right there.

voice comes out high like a girl's. I never know whether I'm going to sound like Mickey Mouse or the giant on top of the beanstalk.

He seems truly sorry.

How much of a smell can you smell, until you can't smell it anymore?

It's different when you kiss someone you really care about. It's like when you're there in person at a baseball game instead of just hearing it on the radio.

Well then. You better make sure your wife can play too. That's my advice to you, Matthew Flanagan

Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.