"She was hopeless. A punker. A druggie. A gang hanger. Peer counseling? Jazz needed long-term professional psychotherapy." (Chapter 1, page 2)

"As soon as I dropped off the boys at the neighbor's, I was out of there. If I didn't have to take care of Chuckie and Michael, I'd never come back." (Chapter 2, page 11)

"Yeah, everyone in the world needed my help. So who was helping me?" (Chapter 4, page 23)

"I hated giving up so easily, but Jazz and I were never going to make it past step one. She was so crazy, she was making me crazy. Pretty soon that'd be the one thing we had in common." (Chapter 6, page 32)

"She seemed to open up whenever we talked about friends or family. If I could keep her on the subject, we might make a major breakthrough. Like getting past step one." (Chapter 9, page 56)

"Okay, I reasoned to myself, what could...