A journey of a thousand miles starts with just ten digits.

He looks at me and then, reverting to the voice he’d used with Kendra, says, ‘If homegirls wanna see me as ghetto trash’–he stops and switches to his lispy, sassy voice–‘or big-ass queer’–now he switches...

Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key,...

She said it was because one day I was going to have to go through a metamorphosis like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly and that scared me, so butterflies scared me.

Accidents. It’s all about the accidents.

In a funny way, Dad was always a bow-tie wearer, always a little more traditional than you might imagine. Because even though he had blue hair and tattoos and wore leather jackets and worked in...

My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.

Sometimes I did feel like I came from a different tribe. I was not like my outgoing, ironic dad or my tough-chick mom. And as if to seal the deal, instead of learning to play...

Oh honey, have you learned nothing from these plays? Ain’t such a line between faking and being.

I don’t really care. I shouldn’t have to care. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.

There are so many things that demand to be said. Where did you go? Do you ever think about me? You’ve ruined me. Are you okay? But of course, I can’t say any of that.

She didn’t care that people called her a bitch. ‘It’s just another word for feminist,’ she told me with pride.

Losing me will hurt; it will be the kind of pain that won’t feel real at first, and when it does, it will take her breath away.

I think of me and Melanie when we were younger, on the high dive at the pool in Mexico. We would always hold hands as we jumped, but by the time we swam back up...

even though I think that Mia and I have enough secrets between the two of us at this point

Whoever said that the past isn’t dead had it backward. It’s the future that’s already dead, already played out.

He laughs a little, but there’s something in his voice that sounds almost reverent.’You never know what will last.’He said that earlier, about accidents, about never knowing which one is just a kink in the...

I look at Ben now. And again I wonder how it is that we can feel so many of the same things and be so utterly different.

Cinders, I would’ve thought you of all people would know better. There are no wicked stepmothers and there are no fairy godmothers, and there are no Prince Charmings. There in no preordained destiny. You get...

Meg invited me to come again, but I always had reasons why I couldn’t: my schedule was busy, bus fare wasn’t cheap. Both of which were true, even if they weren’t the truth.

Then the musical instruments appeared. Dad’s snare drum from the house, Henry’s guitar from his car, Adam’s spare guitar from my room. Everyone was jamming together, singing songs: Dad’s songs, Adam’s songs, old Clash songs,...

But sometimes the memories feel so real, so visceral, so personal, that I confuse them with my own.

Alice goes into the kitchen and returns with a cup of coffee for me, which she announces is free-range and fair-trade and shade-farmed in Malawi, and I nod along as if my coffee needs go...

But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I’ll be in love with tomorrow.

Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow will compel me to dress like a lumberjack.

You thought too hard. Same with travel. You can’t work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents.

You can’t undo loss. You can’t unmake a mistake. (What The Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth?)

I’ll be your mess, you be mineThat was the deal that we had signed

And now I am here, as alone as I’ve ever been. I am seventeen years old. This is not how it’s suppose to be. This is not how my life is suppose to turn out.

We can change in one day. We can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in one day.

I’ll keep you here.’ He taps his temple. ‘Where you can’t get lost.

We’ll make it a blowout like in the olden days.””When dinosaurs roamed the earth?” Teddy asked.”Exactly,” Dad said. “When dinosaurs roamed the earth and your mom and I were young.

I remember watching it all and getting the tickling in my chest and thinking to myself: This is what happiness feels like.

One in a million cases; such comforting odds, except when you were the one

I realize then that it’s not enough to know what someone is called. You have to know who they are.

The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it’s like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to...

You dumb-ass,” I crooned, kissing her on the forehead. “You don’t share me. You own me.

Green trees against the sky in the spring rain while the sky set off the spring trees in the obscuration. Red flowers dot the land in the breeze’s chase while the land colored up in...

I want to undo this. To make it right. But I have no idea how. I don’t seem to know how to open up to people without getting the door slammed in my face. So...

Allyson meanwhile is remembering. Why this person? All the things she has told herself, or other people have told her – infatuation or Paris or good acting or lust – no longer hold water, because...

The day is ending; it’s not coming back.

So, this is how it’s become? This is how I’ve become? A walking contradiction? I’m surrounded by people and feel alone. I claim to crave a bit of normalcy but now that I have some,...

Don’t be scared…Women can handle the worst kind of pain. You’ll find out one day.

…I don’t want to lose you because of the f**ked-up way I found you.

You must not waste your one day here. When the sun shines, you let it shine on you. Snow is always waiting.

Willem laughs again. The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it’s like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point...

Mom was adamantly pro-choice. She had a bumper sticker on the car that read If you can’t trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? But in her case the...

And just in general, I’m better. Better than I’ve been since Bram died, and in some ways better than I was even before that. No, Lulu didn’t break my hear. But I’m beginning to wonder...

Look I accept Adam because you love him. And I assume he accepts me because you love me…your love binds us.’…The funny thing was, I never really bought into Kim’s notion that they were somehow...

We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.