Tobias ‘Toby’ Wolff

You can dream of a moment for years and still somehow miss it when it comes. You've got to reach through the flames and take it, or lose it forever. I took it. So did my mother. We never looked back.

I got this scholarship and he went nuts! He's crazy and I'm leaving!

Oh, no, no. Don't worry. I'm gone! Just give me my paper route money.

Sometimes I had to blame somebody; she was the only one there.

My application forms must've come today and he threw 'em away!

It's not the shoes, is it? Or the candy, or anything else. It's me, Isn't? You just can't stand the fact that I exist.

It was 1957. We were driving from Florida to Utah. After my mother was beaten up by her boyfriend, we got in the Nash and high-tailed it for the uranium fields. We were gonna get rich and change our luck, which hadn't been so hot since our family broke up five years back.

Dwight said I had as much chance of passing the test as he had of farting his way through the star spangled banner.