What is your definition of skank?’ I ask.’A skank fucks skeezas she barely knows.

I believe that what we get out of life is what we’ve set ourselves up to get, so there’s no such thing as an inconsequential decision. Our destinies are the culmination of all the choices...

High school parties exhausted me because I always felt like I was the only thinking person in a room mostly full of morons obliterating precious IQ points with every gulp of whatever booze they managed...

Most of my friends from Columbia are going on to get advanced degrees. And why not? A Ph.D. is the new M.A., a master’s is the new bachelor’s, a B.A. is the new high school...

Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t do drugs. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t have sex. Wear a condom. Wear sunblock. Wear a seat belt. Wear a helmet. If you see something, say something. Just...

Girls will get together just to get together. Guys need an activity as an excuse. Otherwise it’s too homo for them to handle.

I love when I reach Marcus on the phone and as he says hello, I can hear the music he’s listening to in the background. That music is the sound of him without me. How...

It’s so much easier to convince yourself you’re madly in love with someone when you know nothing about him.

Because I’ve learned that you can’t control what other people are going to think about you. The best you can do in life is not piss yourself off.

Then a lightning bolt shot straight through my skivvies. Sha-ZAM!

You can only be in a bad mood for so long before you have to face up to the fact that it isn’t a bad mood at all; it’s just your sucky personality.

We’re all people”, he said simply. “It doesn’t matter if you’re two, thirty-two, or ninety-two. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone wants to feel like they matter in this world.

It’s not my fault that these are the problems I’ve been put on this earth to deal with, right? They’re petty, they piss me off, and they’re all mine

You gotta take chances in this life or you’re alreadydead.

All subjects are the same. I memorize notes for a test, spew it, ace it, then forget it. What makes this scary for the future of our country is that I’m in the tip-top percentile...

Dear Hope, I NEVER thought Id see the day when two of your daily e-mails sandwiched a message from none other than PAUL PARLIPIANO. My crush to end all crushes! Gay man of my dreams!...

There’s only one racing strategy that matters.It’s the one I run by: Get in the lead and don’t let anyone pass you.

(Parentheses speakMore than we dare say out loudWhy, oh, why is that?)

I read your poem,” I croaked. “‘Fall.'”Then something I never thought would happen, happened: Marcus Flutie was shocked by something I said.”You did?” he said. “I thought you lost it!””Well someone found it for me....

I’VE LEARNED THAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK ABOUT YOU.THE BEST YOU CAN DO IN LIFE IS NOT PISS YOURSELFOFF.

And now, as I’m lying alone in my own bed, I keep thinking about writhing against him last night, naked and vulnerable. Even after we’d both risen and fallen, peaked and plummeted, even after Marcus...

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE POINT OF BEING SADWHEN I COULD CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY

As much as I don’t care about those things, I think it’s human nature to not want to feel totally insignificant.

Zen cuts straight through the Quidditch match in progress and almost gets taken down by a Beater hurling a Nerf quaffle right at his machopartes.

You can only really really hurt the ones that you really really love.

I’m sitting in the bleachers, watching longingly as all the boys and umbumped girls in my Personal Health and Fitness class play Muggle Quidditch. I don’t even like the game very much, I think it’s...