Joss Sheldon, The Little Voice

"I liked all the children in my class. Back then, I think we all just tacitly assumed that we were equal. That we were all in the same boat. We didn’t really think about our different genders, races or classes. We just co-existed, like one big family."

"Those drugs were either going to bring me nirvana or they were going to kill me. I was sure of it. And I was comfortable with it."

"My parents, you see, were a little square. They cared more about being good parents in the general sense than being good parents for me. They wanted to appear normal; respectable and responsible. But they weren’t prepared to acknowledge my individual needs."

"The creature who lives inside my brain suggested I do it,” I offered tentatively. “It was very convincing."

"I learned how to argue. They called it ‘Debate’. I learned how to worship. I learned how to become an eager worker and a passive consumer. But I didn’t learn anything practical, like how to purify water, build a home, start a fire, grow food, or survive without the help of corporations."