Weren’t you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren’t you supposed to be saving yourself?” Shanti asked. “Yeah,” Mary Lou answered. “And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is...

I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.

Evie wanted to cry. From fear. From exhaustion, yes. But mostly from the cruel uselessness, the damned stupid arbitrariness of it all.

Wow, I miss Latin. So much fun – all those exciting verbs that don’t come unit the end of the sentence. It’s like a movie trailer for language.

On the Bowery, in the ornate carcass of a formerly grand vaudeville theater, a dance marathon limps along. The contestants, young girls and their fellas, hold one another up, determined to make their mark, to...

It’s strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments – changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers....

I’ve never been in love. I will die without knowing what it feels like to need to see one person’s face when you go to sleep at night, to crave seeing it when you wake...

I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all.

Sometimes I just want to go in a room and break things and scream. Like, it’s so much pressure all the time and if you get upset or angry, people say, ‘Are you on the...

Mr. Babcock pats my shoulder. He smiles, and the caterpillar mustache — the envy of state troopers everywhere, I’m sure — straightens out again. I hear that on the weekends, he’s a part-time security guard...

Careful there, Poet. I might start to believe you.

Hold up. How do you accidentally have sex with somebody?” Adina scoffed. “Is she all, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t s ee your penis there’?”Tiara squealed and waved her hands. “Don’t say that word!””What?...

The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet?...

The police have asked for my help. There’s been a murder.””A murder! Oh, my. Let me just change my shoes,” Evie said excitedly. “It won’t be a minute.

Sexuality is not meant to be this way – an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual...

You can never know about about your own destiny: are the people you meet there to play a part on your oun destiny, or do you exist just to play a role in theirs?

War.” Gorgon spits the word. “That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus...

We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion trying to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there’s an...

Board the cows! We’ve come to enslave your marigolds.

Miss New Mexico stared, dumbfounded. “Stand out? Stand out? I have a freaking tray stuck in my forehead!” She broke into fresh sobs.Taylor clapped for attention. “Miss New Mexico, let’s not get all down in...

I think about dying every day, because I can’t stop thinking about living.

Oh, honey, of course it hurts! Beauty is pain. But you don’t want to look like a troll, do you?

Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I should like to finish my book, alone, without the presence of a single ringleted girl to disrupt me. If you should come for me at dinner and find...

I’m not that kind of Indian,” Shanti said, her practiced smile never leaving her face, though it faltered just a bit, and in that slight wobble was something hard and angry, something that looked like...

Write like it matters, and it will.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archaeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and...

…There’s an -or- in -whore- because you always have a choice to respect your body and say no.

Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren’t we all just a little crazy?

We’re all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away–our stories. I guess that’s what I love about books–they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another...

Forgiveness. The frail beauty of the world takes root in me as I make my way back through the woods, past the caves and the ravine, where the earth has accepted the flesh of the...

What if evil doesn’t really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and...

There is no greater power on this earth than story.

Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder?

She dances a little jig. “This would make one hell of a TV show, huh?” “Yeah. But no one would believe it.” I should let it go. But it’s like the hole, like the door,...

I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I’ve got to think.

And please, stay away from those books you devour. They are putting the most fantastical tales into your head.

There’s no time to be modest. Reason will not work here. Without warning, I kiss Kartik. His lips, pressed firmly against mine, are a surprise. They are warm, light as breath, firm as the give...

Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary.

You don’t know me, dude,” he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. “People always think that they know other people, but they don’t. Not really. I mean,...

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it’s like chasing clouds.

Oh, I didn’t think it wise to hide it. Might not be able to find it again,” I say, cheerily. “It’s sitting in plain view on your chair in the great hall. I do hope...

I know because I read…Your mind is not a cage. It’s a garden. And it requires cultivating.

May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it’s nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen’s health. Your mind is not a cage. It’s a...

I’m Sorry,’ he says. It’s simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways.

Sometimes I just want to burn down all the rules and start over.

…I think we should find some kind of shelter; a cave or something.””I don’t want to do that! What if there’s like, a creature living in the cave?” Tiara said. “Seriously, I saw this show...

God doesn’t like lesbians,” Grandma Huberman hised, throwing the magazine in the trash.Jennifer knew what lesbian meant, and she knew she probably was one. But she couldn’t understand why God would hold that against her...

Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find.