"i do know why guys like jordan cause such a stir in so many women's hearts... the reason why angela loves jordan, and why women always seem to fall for dudes like catalano, is precisely because he makes it so easy for us to project all of our fantasies about men and maleness onto him. jordan is both soulful hunk and empty cipher, or rather, he's a soulful hunk precisely because he's a cipher for girlish fantasy."
-jordan catalano: soulful hunk or empty cipher-

"i love brain precisely because i understand how sad you feel when you're trapped by a fear of being humiliated or rejected or that your words will be misunderstood--something i think everyone can identify with on some level, some of us more strongly than others.
-there's hope for brian krakow-

"i believe the crux of the show is the simple fact that the problems they face and wrestle with in high school are still our problems. their so-called lives are ours. turn this around and you get the, admittedly depressing, idea that we haven't made any real progress since high school. sure, maybe we went to college, got a job, dated, had sex, drank, took drugs, got an apartment, thought about marriage, and more.

we grew up, right? high school is far behind us. for some of us maybe. i suspect that these are the people who are puzzled by my fascination with the show. the rest of us, emotionally at least, are still fighting the same demons we were then: loneliness, loyalty, love, friendship, failure to connect and communicate, kissing, sexual confusion, how to relate to our parents, being good, being bad, and more.

if i'm towing some kind of theory here, it's some kind of updated psychoanalytic one. the emotional issues for your life are indeed framed in your youth, it's just not in infancy, but when you're a teen. as far as i can tell, i became pretty much the person i am now around sophmore year. ...when you turn fourteen or so, you have to start dealing with the stuff you will for the next, oh, twenty or so years. and no one tells you anything, except other people who don't know or whom you're constitutionally incapable of listening to."
-angela v. brian: a theory and a puzzle-