But somewhere in America, between the freeways and the Food-4-Less, between the filling stations and the 5-o-'clock news, behind the blue blinking light coming off the TV, there is a space, an empty space, between us, around us, inside us, that inevitable, desperate, begs to be filled up. And nothing, not shame, not God, not a new microwave, not a wide-screen TV or that new diet with grapefruits, can ever, ever fill it. Underneath all that white noise there's a lack.

— Andrea Portes

Ceaseless. Almost too much for this small frame. You make me part of the sky.

— Andrea Portes

I bet she thought she was getting into a fight with a vanilla wafer on roller skates but little did she know she was getting into a fight with a spider sandwich.

— Andrea Portes

I do what he says, and I close my eyes and open my mouth and the next thing I know he's got his twenty-eight-year-old tongue in my thirteen-year-old mouth and all I can think is that I don't think the hero is supposed to be doing this.

— Andrea Portes

I look like vanilla pudding, so nobody knows that on the inside I am spider soup.

— Andrea Portes

I mean if there was any justice in the world you wouldn't even have to go to school during your period. You'd just stay home for five days and eat chocolate and cry.

— Andrea Portes

It's one of those dumb days when nothing's really wrong but nothing's really right either and the sky can't even choose to be white or gray.

— Andrea Portes

Let's just call it like it is, no need to pretty it up. I care what other people think of me. I'm not Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I'm just a girl in the world.

— Andrea Portes

My age makes him nervous and shame, because his eyes keep heading southwards and then back up, guilty. I can tell I can make his eyes swirl and that's just about all I want to do.

— Andrea Portes

Okay, listen, I don't know what dumb lines you are used to giving girls so they fall all over you, but I just want you to know that I wasn't born yesterday, so I am going to go now and leave you to whatever dumb idiot girl is going to buy that line.

— Andrea Portes