See You in the Cosmos

"Who are you? What do you look like? Do you have one head or two? More? Do you have light brown skin like I do or smooth gray skin like a dolphin or spiky green skin like a cactus? Do you live in a house? I live in a house. My name is Alex Petroski and my house is in Rockview, Colorado, United States of America, planet Earth. I am eleven years and eight months old and the United States is two hundred forty-two years old and Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I’m not sure how old my house is."

"What do you guys do when you can’t fall asleep? Are you sleeping right now? I guess not, because how would you be listening to this if you were sleeping? I guess that means we’re both awake..."

"Ronnie used to tell me to man up whenever he saw me cry. He’d tell me to stop crying, nobody likes a crybaby, and I try but I can’t help it sometimes. Sometimes the clouds inside my head get big and gray and swirly and then I hurricane through my eyes. Except I don’t literally hurricane through my eyes—I don’t actually have a weather system in my head."

"[To the ticket inspector at the Amtrak station] I told him I'm more responsible than a lot of thirteen-year-olds I know. I said I’m more responsible than even a lot of fourteen-year-olds. But he said it doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is your real age, and I said that’s really stupid because kids are different. They should give everyone a test to see how responsible they are and then give them a responsibility age. I know I’d be at least thirteen then because I can already cook and take care of a dog."

"But my hero also said that knowledge is better than ignorance, and it’s better to find out and embrace the truth even if that truth might not feel good. I wanted to put my best foot forward just like my hero, but I believe in the truth too, so that’s why I’m telling you guys what happened . . . why I’m telling you my rocket crashed."

"You can’t steal the stars, because even the closest ones are trillions of miles away and nobody owns them."

"What’s a social worker, is it someone whose job it is to go on Twitter?"

"What the heck is a dad anyway? I mean, if you’re talking about a biological dad I had one, but what about a non-biological dad? If it’s someone to protect you from bad stuff that happens and someone you can help mow the lawn and clean the house, then I have Ronnie and Terra, and if it’s someone you can look up to and follow in their footsteps, then I have my hero Dr. Sagan, and if it’s someone who you can laugh and drive places with, then the guys did that too, so what’s the difference? And why is it that the more I think about that word—dad—the less I know what it means? It’s the same with words like love and truth and bravery too, the more I think about them and say them over, the less sense they make. Love. Truth. Bravery. Bravery. Truth. Love. It’s like, I know those things are out there, I know they exist, but the more I think about them the more it feels like they’re all talking about a lot of different things put together, or they’re talking about the same thing, but... what?"

"The rocket was lit up on the screen and standing straight and tall by itself, and I thought about how one day there’s going to be another big rocket, one that I made with help from a lot of my friends, and this Golden iPod is going to be on it."

"Um... hello, being from... outer space? I don't know what to say."

"[Ranting about her mother] Sometimes parents don’t want to accept that their kids are growing up. They think if we grow up, then we stop being their kids or something. But that’s their whole job! It’s to raise us to be independent! They just have such a hard time facing it, you know? Facing the truth."

"There's a part of it (love) that's, like, letting go. Like a sacrifice but in a good way. You trade a part of yourself for something that's even bigger than you, and it feels good but weird at the same time. It's totally worth it, though."

"[Alex is hospitalized] God I hate hospitals. I’m not allowed to see him yet. The nurse said they’re not sure how long he’ll be in Recovery before they can move him. And it wasn’t doing me any good just waiting there, I was totally useless."

"Sometimes when we really love someone we have to leave them, because it’s better for them than if we stayed. (Ronnie)"