"Like most grown-ups, he thinks teenagers are basically stupid and easily manipulated. He thinks he can find feeling with an x-ray machine. People my age may not know how to juggle the books or play politics, but feelings we know about.”

While this quote is Crabbe’s perspective on his psychiatrist, it is also a general statement of his belief that adults in positions of authority fail to understand young people. It is this attitude that makes so much of education ineffective.

“There are some experiences you want to share with someone, as if the experience is somehow incomplete until you include the other person and its existence. But sometimes something happens that's so special, so much a part of what you are, you want to kind of save it, at least for a while. And maybe forever...[b]ut if you save it in your head, the memories get newer memories piled on top of them, like old furniture in a dark attic, until you can't find the originals anymore.” 

This quote provides the rationale for the journal form Crabbe chooses to tell his story and highlights the importance of language to making sense of human experience.

“But deep down I'm glad I did what I did. I'm glad because it's the one intelligent, independent, creative thing I've done in my life, and the one thing I've done for me.”

This quote explains Crabbe’s motivation for running away: his desire for autonomy and recognition as an adult.