Petra turned to her. “Everybody lies about who they are. Name one person here who isn’t doing that and I will drop out right now!”Shanti felt that snake of truth coil around her legs, threatening...

Taylor clapped her hands three times for attention. “Ladies! Ladies! My stars! That’s enough. Now. We all know Miss Arkansas’s girls are fake, miss Ohio’s easier than making cereal, and Miss Montana’s dress is something...

You can’t believe how bleeding scary the sea is! There’s, like, whales and storms and shit! They don’t bloody tell you that!

I’ve never done acid, finding it hard to go willingly to a place that could be frightening, hellish, and totally beyond my control. A place much like high school.

He smiles sadly. “Now I know my destiny.””What is it?””This.”He draws me in to him in a kiss. His lips are warm. He pulls me tighter in his embrace. The roots sigh and release their...

You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty.””If you wish to suffer, you...

I’m an oddity of one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share.

To those who will see, the world waits.

Please, I’m a transgender former boy-bander. You think I don’t know how to defend myself?

The wind swoops over the tenements on Orchard Street, where some of those starry-eyed dreams have died and yet other dreams are being born into squalor and poverty, an uphill climb. It gives a slap...

Libraries are a force for good. They wear capes. They fight evil. They don’t get upset when you don’t send them a card on their birthdays. (Though they will charge you if you’re late returning...

I will never, ever drink whiskey again. From now on, it’s strictly sherry.

Maybe there’s a heaven, like they say, a place where everything we’ve ever done is noted and recorded, weighed on big karma scales. Maybe not. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant experiment run...

When she can’t bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.

There are no safe choices. Only other choices.

Dans chaque fin, il y a un début.

The glow dies down, and she’s standing at the end of my bed–the one who’s been following me around leaving feather messages. I take in the torn fishnets, plaid mini-kilt, shiny, riveted breastplate with leather...

Reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let...

To each his own magic.

As a journalist, I am compelled to know the answers.””As a girl, I am compelled to protect what’s left of my manicure,” Petra said.

I’m a wild girl from a cursed line of women. I paw at the ground and run under the moon. I like the feel of my own body. I’m not a slut or a nympho...

I change the world, the world changes me.

Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and in your pants.

Fate determines your caste. You must accept it and live according to the rules.”You can’t really believe that!”I do believe it. That man’s misfortune is that he cannot accept his caste, his fate.”I know that...

The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes...

Could I have a Sloe Gin Fizz, without the gin?””What’s the point of that, Miss?” the waiter said.”Tomorrow morning,” Mabel said.

Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word?

I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-“”The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl.” He sounds bitter and sad.”If the world will not forgive me,” I say softly, “I...

What happens if your choice is misguided?’ I ask, softly.Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. ‘You must try to correct it.”But what if it’s too late?...

Memphis found his smile. ‘You know me, sir. I don’t wear worry.

He took her face into his hands and his kiss blotted out the sky

But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.

here’s a side of hurt” lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there.Why, you ask? Because, I answer.Inadequate yet true.

I know you adore Father, but he isn’t the white knight you imagine him to be. He never was. True, he’s charming and loving in his way. But he’s selfish. He’s a limited man determined...

So I slap on that smile and pretend everything’s okay even though it’s not.

One could argue that it’s romantic to die for love. Of course, then you’re dead and unable to take that honeymoon trip to the Alps with all the other fashionable young couples, which is a...

I don’t know why I feel so wounded with Kartik’s obvious infatuation with Pippa. There’s no romance between us. There’s nothing that tethers us but this dark secret neither of us wants. It’s not Kartik’s...

Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells ’em off for a coupla stones.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge...

The wind has shifted to the East. A storm isn’t far off. I can smell the moisture in the air, a fetid, living thing. Isolated drops fall, licking at my hands, my face, my dress....

I’d like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you’re reading Sarah Palin.

Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.

There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.

Felicity ignores us. She walks out to them, an apparition in white and blue velvet, her head held high as they stare in awe at her, the goddess. I don’t know yet what power feels...

Pippa’s laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. ‘Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It’s a misery. I wish I were someone else.

As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the...

So, now I’ve been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and...

We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans.