Then I kissed Max because I loved him, and everyone I had ever loved before had gone away and I had never kissed them goodbye

I didn't know what to say when someone's given you a small free kiss in the dark.

Running away was easy; not knowing what to do next was the hard part.

You might think what I tell you next is all a dream, or that I've imagined it. I can't help it if that's what you think, but I swear it's true. Sometimes the truest things are the hardest to believe.

I know that sentence is long and has too many joining words in it but sometimes, when I'm angry, words burst out of me like a shout, or, if I'm sad, they spill out of me like tears, and if I'm happy my words are like a song. If that happens it's one of my rules not to change them because they're coming out of my heart and not my head, and that's the way they're meant to be.

Sometimes words come out of me and I don't know where they come from or why. They're like falling stars tumbling through the universe; bright, burning things that can't be stopped.

Books are many things: lullabies for the weary, ointment for the wounded, armour for the fearful and nests for those in need of a home.