And maybe that's the whole point, after all - that everyone of us who existed spent all those limitless days over the thousands of centuries we were here just trying to figure out what it meant to be us. The mousetrap trigger is this precise point: Pour the word us into the coding of a human, and we immediately discount as inferior or useless all the not-us things in the universe. Are you one of us?

I know it's kind of ridiculous, but I realize now how wrong that old pervert Mr. Wellins is. Almost nothing at all is ever about sex, unless you never grow up, that is.It's about love, and maybe not having it.What an old, delusional idiot he is.But what do I know?I'm just fourteen.

What kind of world did our fathers abandon us to?

It's still home, Cager, and there's something about home, no matter how untidy we've left it.

If it's impossible to understand how I could kick a weeping, torn-in-half cog that was gushing something that looked like tapioca pudding and whale semen on my nice shiny space suit, then you probably never kicked a car for getting a flat tire, or slapped a television remote when the batteries were getting weak, in which case you'll never understand what it means or meant to be a human.

Man will tell woman he will die for her, but I say, tell woman that you will die for her both physically and interior

Nonsense. You aren’t alive to begin with,” I pointed out. “Suck it up and make the best of it, Milo. The future is bright, I assure you.”“We come into existence, and we float through space, doomed, until we all die horribly. No reason to live at all.”Milo the busboy wept uncontrollably. He probably knew more than I did, but who can say?

Again, for the record, let me restate: you can't be rude to a coffee grinder and only an idiot would thank it for pulverizing beans.But you could, and probably should, unplug it if it doesn't shut up.

That's really what all books are, isn't it? I mean, lists of secrets and things you only wish you’d done - a sort of deathbed confession where you're trying to get it all out while the lights are still on.