- Chet Duncan: Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss, but every once in a while you find someone who's iridescent, and once you do, nothing will ever compare.
- Juli Baker: [on why she's interested in Bryce] I guess it's something about his eyes... or maybe his smile.
- Richard Baker: Well, what about him?
- Juli Baker: What?
- Richard Baker: You have to look at the whole landscape.
- Juli Baker: What does that mean?
- Richard Baker: A painting is more than the sum of its parts. A cow by itself is just a cow, a meadow by itself is just grass, flowers... and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but you put them all together... and it can be magic.
- Bryce Loski: It's strange. Here I was having lunch with the hottest girl in school; I was miserable... because less than twenty feet away from me was Juli, my Juli, with Eddie Trulock. She's laughing. What was she laughing about? How could she sit there and laugh and look so beautiful?
- Chet Duncan: You know, Bryce... one's character is set at an early age. I'd hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.
- Bryce Loski: Sir?
- Chet Duncan: It's about honesty, son. Sometimes a little discomfort in the beginning can save a whole lot of pain down the road.
- Bryce Loski: When she walked out of the door, I thought back to the first time I saw her. How could anybody, ever, have wanted to run away from Juli Baker?
- Juli Baker: He looked at me with those eyes, those once again dazzling eyes, and I knew that Bryce Loski was still walking around with my first kiss - but he wouldn't be for long.
- Bryce Loski: They're all chickens.
- Chet Duncan: I'm proud of you Bryce. You overcame your fear.
- Bryce Loski: Huh?
- Chet Duncan: You talked to her.
- Bryce Loski: Oh. Yeah... it's no big deal.
- Steven Loski: That's what she told you? They're all chickens?
- Bryce Loski: Yeah.
- Steven Loski: She's a genius. You're both geniuses. Of course they're all chickens! A rooster's a chicken. The question is, is one of them a rooster or are they all hens?
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] Hens? Who said anything about hens? Then it hit me - Garrett didn't know jack shit about chickens.
- Juli Baker: [voiceover] As we stood there, I realized that... all these years we never really talked
- Juli Baker: Do you need some help?
- Bryce Loski: Yeah.
- Juli Baker: [voiceover] But that day we started.
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] And I knew we'd be talking for a long time.
- Bryce Loski: Flat, glossy, iridescent? What the hell did that mean? And Juli Baker had always just seemed plain to me. Until now.
- Dana Tressler: The only bee you're attracting is B-R-Y-C-E. I'm telling you, that boy is lost in Loveland.
- Bryce Loski: It didn't take me long to realize that I'd traded in my old problems with Juli Baker for a whole set of new ones. It was actually worse having her mad at me than having her annoy me, and the way she ignored me was a constant reminder that I'd been a jerk.
- Garrett: Are you freaking mental? Juli Baker? You hate her.
- Bryce Loski: Well, that's what's so weird. I don't think I do. I can't stop thinking about her.
- Garrett: You got it bad, man.
- Juli Baker: He was so shy and so cute... and his hair, it smelled like watermelon. I couldn't get enough of it. I spent the whole year secretly sniffing watermelon aand wondering if I was EVER going to get my kiss.
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] I'd seen my father angry before, but this was different. As I lay in bed that night, I... I thought about how my dad always looked down on the Bakers and how he'd call them trash and made fun of Mr. Baker's paintings, and now I realized he was just mad at himself. But why? Juli called me coward. Was it possible my dad was a coward too? I didn't know.
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] I found myself staring at her in class, and the way her hair fell back over her shoulders... she looked just like the picture in the newspaper. Dana Tressler caught me watching; if I didn't do something fast, this could spread like wildfire.
- Bryce Loski: There's a bee in her hair. See, there it goes.
- Dana Tressler: There's no bee.
- Bryce Loski: It flew out the window.
- Bryce Loski: Is that a rooster?
- Garrett: Nah, it looks like a chicken.
- Bryce Loski: How can you tell?
- Garrett: It just does.
- Juli Baker: I think the tree looks particularly beautiful in this light. Don't you?
- Bryce Loski: Well, if by "beautiful" you mean "unbelievably ugly," then, yes, I would agree.
- Juli Baker: You're just visually challenged. I feel sorry for you.
- Richard Baker: Trina, it's Sunday. What are you doing mopping the floor?
- Trina Baker: Patty Loski invited us over for dinner Friday night.
- Richard Baker: Shouldn't she be mopping HER floor, or did she ask to borrow ours?
- Juli Baker: Sherry Stalls was nothing but a whiny, gossipy, backstabbing flirt - all hair and no substance - and there she was... holding hands with Bryce - my Bryce - the one who was walking around with my first kiss.
- Juli Baker: [narrating]
- [her recollection of that first day]
- Juli Baker: The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped. It was those eyes - something in those dazzling eyes.
- Juli Baker: His family had just moved into the neighborhood, and I'd gone over to help them. I'd been in the van all of two minutes when his dad sent him off to help his mom. I could see he didn't wanna go. So I chased after him to see if we could play a little before he got trapped inside. The next thing I know, he's holding my hand and looking right into my eyes.
- [Bryce enters the second grade classroom]
- Young Juli: Bryce! You're here!
- [runs up and tries to hug him]
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] Now only Eddie Trulock stood between me and the auction block. I wasn't interested in his hobbies or what was in his basket. All I could think of... was Juli.
- Bryce Loski: To fully appreciate the humiliation of being a basketboy, all you need to know is that the chosen few are auctioned off in front of the whole student body to the highest-bidding females. Yes, technically, each of us comes with a lunch in a basket, but let's not kid ourselves - this was a beefcake parade.
- Bryce Loski: [voiceover] As comforting a it was to be Garrett's idol, it didn't diminish the horror of being Basketboy #9, and my only hope was that a giant tornado would destroy the school before the big event.
- [first lines]
- Bryce Loski: [narrating] All I ever wanted was for Juli Baker to leave me alone. It all began in the summer of 1957, before the start of second grade.
- Bryce Loski: For me, it was the beginning of what would be more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.
- Juli Baker: [jumps into the back of their moving truck] Hi, I'm Juli Baker.
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