Charlie Quotes

Charlie addresses his letters to a "friend." Hmmm, this sounds more like a Facebook friend than an actual friend. After all, he tells us that he only knows one thing about the person and has never even met him or her in person.

Charlie acts against his shy nature, and he gets some friends as a reward. What do you think—is this a step in the right direction for Charlie, or is Patrick just a super understanding guy?

Perks is keeping some creepy tabs on our lives, don't you think? After all, we all know the feeling of being on the outside of an inside joke. Chbosky's use of everyday friendship happenings allows us to really understand how important Sam and Patrick will be to Charlie.

After Michael's death, Charlie is eagerly craving any sort of social interaction. We know it's desperate when a teenage boy wants a friend more than a date.

Infinite. What a great way to describe the profound power of a shared moment of joy between friends. Can you remember your most recent infinite moment?

Charlie is really the sensitive type, huh? No matter what kind of stupid stuff he does to and with his friends, it's pretty clear that he cares about them.

Enough said.

Friends are kind of like a drug for Charlie—going through withdrawal is painful.

Even though their friendship is strained, Charlie is loyal to Patrick in the Nutrition Center showdown. But it takes an extreme situation—like Patrick getting destroyed by Brad and his buddies—for Charlie to be prompted to act.

So happy together! A sense of belonging is so important in high school, even more for someone like Charlie. And his friends are able to give him that.

Brad, who is having a difficult time coming to terms with his homosexuality, uses drugs and alcohol as an excuse for his behavior. You know things are bad when you're willing to admit to drug use instead of just coming out of the closet.

Pot is on the brain, it seems. Drugs are everywhere in Charlie's life, so much that he thinks his family might be in on it, too.

Aunt Helen turned to drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity to deal with problems that haunted her for years. We'll let you figure out how that turned out.

If it weren't for the fact that Charlie were tripping on LSD here, this might be a pretty Zen moment. Instead, it's something that might permanently damage his already fragile mind.

During the course of the novel, Charlie drinks, smokes cigarettes and pot, and does LSD. But the LSD doesn't quite work for him—it just heightens the activity in his already overactive mind.

Wait, LSD? We thought Charlie was talking about a day he spent with Gary Busey.

Here Sam is talking about one of the effects of LSD, but the same could be said about Charlie even when he's not doing the drug, don't you think? He has a tendency to let the world swallow him whole and move around him—and he doesn't do anything about it.

When most people buy Easter grass, they're buying piles of that green plastic-y stuff that goes in baskets. The fact that Charlie uses his Easter money to buy drugs highlights how much his childhood innocence has been corrupted.

…and start getting real. Oh, sorry, it's "stop being polite and start getting real." We're still thinking about the glory days of The Real World. In any case, Charlie finally gets real and understands that the drugs are hurting him way more than they're helping him.

Now it's Patrick's turn to hop on the using-alcohol-or-drugs-to-cope-with-a-difficult-situation bandwagon. We wonder how that will turn out.