teenager relationships Quotes

“Now he sits alone in his room, a sixteen-year-old boy, waiting for her to call. Wishing for her to tell him it was real. It was as perfect as he imagined. But the phone sits silently.”

“He throws the pot of lemon balm she gave him over the edge of the balcony. No phone call. He tosses the black Frisbee and the Swiss Army knife over too. Still the phone stays silent.”

“The boy continues to wait, systematically destroying all of the objects from their short-lived relationship. He rips up the bus pass from their first meeting. The phone is quiet.”

“As he plays their relationship over in his mind like a movie, he wonders: What if his heart’s delight doesn’t call? Will life be worth living then? ”

Over the course of the novel, the youth methodically destroys each piece of memorabilia from his relationship with Ann-Katrin, whom he thinks of as Heart’s Delight (it is also another name for the lemon balm plant she grows in her bedroom).

“My mother is pretty strict with me. My grandmother tries to put her two cents’ worth in as well, but Mama hates her butting in. The two of them are forever as loggerheads with each other. Like whenever school camp comes along, it’s fights galore. My grandmother thinks that if a member of our family isn’t looking after me I’ll get raped or murdered. She accuses my mother of being a bad mother for not caring enough and letting me go.”

“So my final school year began. I had promised myself that I would be a saint for this year alone. I would make the greatest impression on my teachers and become the model student. I knew it would all fail. But just not on the first day. Sister Gregory walked toward me, and when she was so close that I could see her mustache, she held out her hand. ‘Show me what you’re reading.’ ”

“My name, by the way, is Josephine Alibrandi and I turned seventeen a few months ago. (The seventeen that Janis Ian sang about where one learns the truth.) I’m in my last year of high school at Sr. Martha’s, which is situated in the eastern suburbs, and next year I plan to study law. For the last five years we have been geared for this year. The year of the HSC (the High School Certificate), where one’s whole future can skyrocket or go down the toilet, or so they tell us.”

“Every time I came back from Sephy’s, I flinched at the sight of the shack that was meant to be my home. Why couldn’t my family live in a house like Sephy’s! Why didn’t any naught I knew of live in a house like Sephy’s? Looking at our rundown hovel, I could feel the usual burning, churning sensation begin to rise up inside me. My stomach tightened, my eyes began to narrow... So I forced myself to look away.”

“Callum was the one person in the world I could tell anything and everything to without having to think twice about it. So why did I now feel so...out of step? Like he was leaving me behind? He suddenly seemed so much older, not just in years but in the things he knew and had experienced. His eyes were a lot older than fifteen.”