I start to think, ‘It’s awful being too poor to even buy my own dress for homecoming.’ But that’s instantly swept away by another thought: ‘I’m so lucky that someone cates enough to loan me...

To quote a famous philosopher revered in my time ‘But this is no different from regular life. When have you ever known what’s going to happen in the future?'” Wait a minute, Jonah thought. I...

But, really, are there any guys out there who aren’t jerks? I don’t even know any grown-up men who aren’t jerks.

Maybe everyone is just waiting for someone else to save them.

He looked at the piles of food again, and it was like he was seeing it with new eyes. “This is wrong”, he thought, “Letting food rot while people die of hunger. It’s evil.”….He breathed...

Because,” he said in an even voice, “you’re used to winning, so you don’t even think about how, every time there’s a game, both sides get that ‘rah, rah, team’ speech from their coaches both...

I want to Live! Not Die, Not Hide, LIVE!

Governments will rise, and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.

Ah, jeez… She really is a cheerleader.’ And it seemed suddenly that this was true- not because she was an airhead or a hottie or a nonjock, but because she could throw herself so wholeheartedly...

Listen, I’ll share some of the wisdom I learned over the years. When you near the end of your life… when you’re a lonely old man… you start realizing what your accomplishments are really worth....

Why didn’t you tell me that evil could be so lighthearted?

But it’d be nice to have someone who cared about me, someone I could talk toabout anything, someone who’d tell me I was really special.

And Nedley started saying,’Shut Up!Quit that! And i knew it really meant something to him. So I asked for his help,”Mark said. “Don’t tell the story like that,” Nedley laughed. “What he said was ‘Quit...

But things are so bad, I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t do something.

That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father – burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin – doesn’t seem to belong on it.

I snorted “oh, beauty. What’s that good for?”Mary stared, her eyes round.”It won you the prince, did it not?”I snorted again, I prefer to think that he was captivated by my charming personality.” I giggled...

The sudden silence is horrifying, and it seems to catch my mother off guard. A tiny whimper escapes her, the sound amplified in the stillness. Surely, my father hears her now; surely he and I...

Jen, we did it. Everyone’s free now.

A thousand times today I’ve started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, “Can you tell me…? But then I’d look into the front seat, at my mother’s silent shaking, my father’s grim profile,...

Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to...

Oh, Myr,” he chokes out. “I hate having to ask this of you…”He glances towards the car again, and I crouch down in the shadows, hoping it’s too dark for him to see whether the...

Is this as good as it gets?

It’s like I’d been walking a tightrope with a big safety net underneath me, but I never really thought about the net until someone took it away. And then every single step scared me to...

Amazing, Yetta thought. Back home I couldn’t have chosen my own husband. And here I’m thinking about choosing presidents, governors, mayors, laws…

But Mother, I don’t want to go. It’s just that…I have to. I can’t spend the rest of my life hiding in the attic.[…]I don’t want to be a burden[…]I want to do something with...

I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people you hate. But you must still dare to love. The rewards are worth far...

Most people couldn’t be rich if they wanted to be honest; most people couldn’t be honest if they wanted to be rich.