I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or...

I have to go. Boss hasthis weird idea that I should actually work while he’s payingme.

Some adults would rather pretend that bad things don’t exist than to talk about them.

The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.

In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birthdays. Teacher smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names...

Until then we’re going to keep making memories like this, moments when we’re the only two people in the whole world. And when we get scared or lonely or confused, we’ll pull out these memories...

That can be the most painstaking aspect of being a teen, figuring out what the world really looks like. If you find someone in a book, you know you’re not alone and that’s what’s so...

They mean hot like ‘I’m too good for you I got my own money don’t be frontin’ me.’ You’re more like ‘Be my boyfriend I’ll make you cookies come meet my dad ‘ know what...

Picasso.” He whispers like a priest. “Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, moulded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.

Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, ‘Open up, your best friend is here.’ On the other hand, it could have been, ‘America is a great country because of canned...

I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At...

We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment...

I am an owl, bird of the night. I see everything. I know everything.

I am super proud of being an American, but we fail our veterans every day.

Everyone is born a freak,” notes Hayley. “Every newborn baby, wet and hungry and screaming, is a fresh-hatched freak who wants to have a good time and make the world a better place. . ....

Write about the emotions you fear the most.

I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading. But some books should come with warning labels: Caution: contains characters and plots guaranteed to induce sleepiness....

We have to acknowledge that adolescence is that time of transition where we begin to introduce to children that life isn’t pretty, that there are difficult things, there are hard situations, it’s not fair. Bad...

Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It’s not like you can blame a mattress when people don’t tie it down tight enough.

Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of...

I won’t take a real nap. I have this halfway place, a rest stop on the road to sleep, where I can stay for hours. I don’t even need to close my eyes, just stay...

Where did you live before you came here?” I asked. “The moon,” he said smoothly. “We left because the place had no atmosphere.

Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It’s death porn for the masses.

Mr. Freeman sighs. “No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You’ve already let them beat your creativity out of you!

Sometimes when I find myself very irritated about a topic, I know it’s my next book.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they’ll let you become and adult. I hope it’s worth it.

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what’s left sound natural.

I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that’s the problem. When you’re alive, people can hurt you. It’s easier to crawl into a bone cage or...

Each reader has to find her or his own message within a book.

You’re the one who doesn’t understand, I’ve been standing on the edge with you for years.

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. We are here to help you. 2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code...

I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page

I drift into the armpits of strangers, tasting their manic salt, and sleep to forget everything.

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.

She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She’d already done so…I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave...

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?

If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that’s why I was put on the planet.

Few people know this, but I am a trained assassin, skilled in jujitsu and krav maga. I can also, with a few folds, turn an ordinary piece of notebook paper into a lethal weapon. Or...

Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings...

Eating was hard.Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes when I’m writing, I can feel my bones vibrating because I’ll have a...

Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it’s not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend – trees...

Gym should be illegal. It’s humiliating.

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather’s Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or...

Why?’ She nods. ‘She had everything: a family who loved her, friends, activities. Her mother wants to know why she threw it all away?’ Why you want to know why? Step into a tanning booth...

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.

Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can’t help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to...

It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

I think how veterans are treated in our country is an abomination. We don’t have the draft any more, which is why so many soldiers come from working-class – rather than middle- or high-income families....