Stitches: A Memoir Transformation Quotes

Here we have David's thoughts upon first seeing his stitches, with the words he imagines the stitches giving in response. His journey from innocence to wisdom begins when he realizes he's literally scarred for life.

In what is arguably the most heartbreaking panel in the book, the little bat in David's dream opens the umbrella and realizes it isn't his mother—it's not even a working umbrella. It's just a bunch of spines with shreds of fabric, and the motherless bat stands alone in the rain.

Reading Lolita transforms David into someone separate from his family. If he can't be free of them physically, he can be free of them mentally.

In this full-page panel, a couple does some major French-kissing in the foreground, a crowd of people laugh in the background, and a boy with a blank white face sits with his arms crossed in a chair. The surgery has changed him from someone into no one—from a person into a placeholder.

Not that we're telling you to skip school—really, we're not—but exploring the world for yourself and coming to your own conclusions is the most lasting, meaningful kind of education. Now go do your algebra homework.

When David's therapist tells him his mother doesn't love him, he holds the therapist's legs and cries a single tear. This panel is a full page with a black background, a carryover from David's black shirt in panel 4.56. The tears flow down the page like raindrops on a window, marking the transition to panel 4.58, the beginning of the next scene, in which rain falls outside.

Obviously seeing your mom in bed with another woman will change your life forever, but because her secret has been discovered, the incident changes David's mom's life, too. Once she knows he knows, neither of them can ever be the same.

Once David knows where his cancer came from, it's no longer just something that happened to him -- it's something that was done to him. But once you realize who's been writing your life story, you can take it back and write the rest of it yourself.

In this full-page panel, we see David's child face looking up from the table at the X-ray machine. Where the child's chin should be are the teenage David's eyebrows, with his face below. We see his sad, baffled expression at the moment his dad reveals he gave David cancer. The boy transforms into a man in one panel; one moment of enlightenment.

David makes a huge change in his life after finding out what caused his cancer: He gets the heck outta Dodge. He can't wait one more minute to start being who he is, not who his parents want him to be.