Quote 7
"Stargirl, you just can't do things the way you do. If you weren't stuck in a homeschool all your life, you'd understand. You can't just wake up in the morning and say you don't care what the rest of the world think."
Her eyes were wide, her voice peepy like a little girl's.
"You can't?"
"Not unless you want to be a hermit" (25.40-42).
Whose side are you taking in this argument? Is Leo right? Does being too strange, too outside the norm, mean you'll have to live like a hermit? Does Stargirl have a point in implying that conforming is, well, pointless? It's a tough call.
Quote 8
"The point is in a group everybody acts pretty much the same, that's kind of how the group holds itself together."
"Everybody?" she said.
"Well, mostly, I said. That's what jails and mental hospitals are for, to keep it that way."
"You think I should be in jail?" she said.
"I think you should try to be more like the rest of us" (25.47).
In this heartbreaking exchange, Leo is explaining to Stargirl why in order for them to stay together, she must change. He doesn't understand that if she does change, they still won't be together because she will not be herself anymore. He'll be dating someone entirely new, and someone profoundly less awesome. Or maybe he does understand, and is too immature to care.
Quote 9
And each night I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered my shade to make it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I like the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.
It was during one of these nightmoon times that it came to me that Hillari Kimble was wrong. Stargirl was real (2.41-42).
When Leo lets the moonlight into his window, he gains insights into the world around him. He feels connected, and he acquires wisdom. Thanks, nature! This occurs several times in the novel, so feel free to look for more examples of when he lets nature into his life. When he does so, does he seem improved as a person? What about when he shuts nature out of his life?