Listen, the road to happiness is a long fucking road trip. You can’t takeThe freeway. Back roads, buddy, that’s all you got. Unpaved back roadsAnd bad weather. Storms, baby. Don’t expect to get there fast....

I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.

Yeah, that would be okay,” he said.

Feeling sorry for myself was an art.

What is it with you and that book?”Rafael laughed. “We have a personal relationship.

I guess I did miss Dante-even though i tried hard to not think about him.The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.

He tried not to laugh, but he wasn’t good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.

He looked tired but at that moment, as we sat at the kitchen table, there was something young about him. And I thought that maybe he was changing into someone else. Everyone was always becoming...

I also knew I had inherited the name of the world’s most famous philosopher. I hated that. Everyone expected something from me. Something I just couldn’t give.So I renamed myself Ari.If I switched the letter,...

One summer night I fell asleep hoping the world would be different when I woke. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, the world was the same.

One of my roommates, Rafael, he’s an expert on monsters. Not that he talks about them. I can just tell. People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a...

I guess I didn’t have it so bad.Maybe everybody didn’t love me,but i wasn’t one of those kids that everyone hated,either.I was good in a fight.So people left me alone.i was almost invisible.i think i...

Water was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.

I live in an ecotone. Employment must coexist with goofing off. Responsibility must coexist with irresponsibility.

Breakfast seemed to be a good time for throwing your emotions around. Jodie said that at this place emotions were like Frisbees – people just tossed them around all day long like they were at...

When do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?” I wanted to tell him that the world would never belong to us. “I don’t know,” I said. “Tomorrow.

There are worst things in life than kissing boys

I’d rather have a cup of coffee and a cigarette than live in all that honesty.

When I walked into the house, I went in search of one of my dad’s bottles. Not that they were that hard to find. He hid bottles all over the house. I knew where they...

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.

Try it again,” I said. “Kiss me.””No,” he said.”Kiss me.””No,” And then he smiled. “You kiss me.”I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I...

Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?

Adam says I isolate. He is addicted to telling me that I spend too much time in my head. It’s an unhealthy behavior. Look, I don’t see how not bothering other people with your screwed-up...

The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.

I have this idea stuck in my head that you have to be born beautiful in order to dream beautiful things. God didn’t write beautiful on my heart. I’m stuck with all my bad dreams....

When I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending.

I wished it was raining,” he said.”I don’t need the rain,” I said. “I need you.

Do you think it will always be this way?””What?””I mean, when do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?”I wanted to tell him that the world would never belong to us. “I don’t...

Talking is fantastically overrated. Too many people do too much of it. It stuns the hell out of me how so many people like to talk. Sharkey, for example. If talking is so good for...

I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

What did being connected to the world get you? It got you sadder. Look, the world is not sane. If you stay connected to an insane world, well, you just go crazy. This is not...

If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.

People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.

I decided that maybe we left each other alone too much. Leaving each other alone was killing us.

I wish I didn’t have a heart that God wrote Sad on.

Do it for therapy. You can go to art school later.

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

I wondered what it was like to feel whole, to not feel torn up or stunned out or wigged out or any of those things. I wondered what it was like to walk around the...

I had to be the world’s biggest loser, writing about hair, and stuff about my body. No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would...

¨Someday, I’m going to have to break some of your rules, Mom.¨¨I know,¨ she said. ¨Try to do it behind my back, will you?¨¨You can bet on that, Mom.¨We both sat there and laughed.

The sky was almost black and then it started hailing. It was so beautiful and scary, I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the...

I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.

Dad? Dad, no. No. I can’t. I can’t. Why are you saying these things?””Because I can’t stand watching all that loneliness that lives inside you.

What is this thing you call substance abuse? All I wanna do is forget and get loose.Drinking and smoking over and overWhat’s so great about a life that’s sober?There’s nothing cool about being youngWhen the...

I’m not a good kid. Yeah, look, I’m just a piece of paper with the word sad and a bunch of cuss words written on it.A lousy piece of paper. That’s me.A piece of paper...

I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn’t like feeling like that.

See, the thing about that word, Sharkey, the F-word, is that sometimes I make that word do too much work. I mean, I say that word as if it clearly articulates what I’m really feeling....

I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.

For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.

He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he’d rather be kissing boys. That’s exactly what he said. I didn’t know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to...