“You know, when people have no meaning in their lives, they begin to do things that sometimes can be totally crazy.”

“I always wanted to have the courage to do totally crazy, impossible, and also wrong things.”

“Crazy people are like that. They have unlimited crazy currency. [...] The things they say mean nothing to them, but they mean everything to me.”

“All the people around Hester hate her and despise her and think she's a total freak. The kid's beyond human law and human consideration. How do you feel about yourself when every human being you hear and see and smell every day of your being thinks you're worse than garbage? Your conception of who you are has always, at least partially, depended on how the people around you behaved towards you… You don't know. How can you know anything? How can you know anything? You begin to go crazy.”

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

“Sometimes you have to do things when sad things happen.”

“You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.”

“I know he was desperate. That makes people do all kinds of crazy things.”

“Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.”

“And sometimes when you're very mixed-up inside, you do things you know you shouldn't do.”