The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (2009)

"Angela Ashford says [AIDS] are bad and that I probably have 'em."

Dr. Clair looked at Layton. The mancala pieces were still in her hand.

"If Angela Ashford ever says anything like that to you ever again, you tell her that just because she's insecure about being a little girl in a society that puts an inordinate amount of pressure on little girls to live up to certain physical, emotional, and ideological standards- many of which are improper, unhealthy, and self-perpetuating- it doesn't mean she has to take her misplaced self-loathing out on a nice boy like you. You may be inherently part of the problem, but that doesn't mean you aren't a nice boy with nice manners, and it certainly doesn't mean you have AIDS."

"I'm not sure I can remember all that," Layton said.

"Well then, tell Angela that her mother is a white-trash drunk from Butte." p. 37

I do love the sound of ripping corn husks. The violence of the noise, the sustained popping and shoring of the silky organic threads, made me think of someone tearing up an expensive and potentially Italian set of trousers in a fit of madness that this person might just regret later. p. 10

The moment that latch on my door ticked shut, I began agonizing. For the art of packing I changed into an athletic costume complete with sweatband and kneepads. This was going to be more difficult than the President's Fitness Challenge, in which I couldn't manage a single pull-up.
I put a little Brahms on the record player to calm the nerves. p. 77

How lucky I was to have grown up on such a ranch, such a castle of imagination, where hounds gnawed on bones and the mountains signed with the weight of the heavens on their backs. p. 350

"... A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected. To do this right is very difficult." - Mr. Benefideo, p. 138