Quotes from book

House Rules

“If he says jump, she doesn't even ask "How high?" She goes out and buys a pogo stick.”

“Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.”

“What being home-schooled has taught me, more than anything, is what a waste of a life high school is.”

“When someone dies, it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you
have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerves are still a little raw.”

“I'd do it all over again.”

“We're [parents]) always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we won't screw up too badly.”

“People don’t just disappear. There’s always a reason, or an enemy with a grudge. There’s always a loose thread that starts to unravel.”

“The best place to cry is on a mother's arms.”

“I don't know what he means by that, but I nod and smile at him. You'd be surprised at how far that response can get you in a conversation where you are completely confused.”

“I personally subscribe to the belief that normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

“I think you're the only person who gets me. When I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like a problem I can't figure out. Please come to the dance, because you're my music.”

“Everytime I look at a zebra, I can't figure out whether it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and that frustrates me.”

“In reality, you don’t ever change the hurricane. You just learn how to stay out of its path.”

“Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself.”

“Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There is only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces.”

“My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.”

“Logical thinking keeps you from wasting time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.”

“I imagine how cool it would be if all small talk wasn't lies.”

“Jacoblike a totally normal young man. He's clearly intelligent. But having his day disrupted probably makes him feel the same way I would if I was suddenly told to bungee off the top of the Sears Tower.”