It’s natural to overlook and even sacrifice the things that belong to us most easily most gracefully. So here’s me asking you to please not make that mistake.

Different people were good at different things, Lena mused. Lena was good at writing thank-you notes, for instance, and Effie was good at being happy.

Pain is fear, and I'm not afraid.

Why does he have to be my boyfriend? Are you inferior if you don't have a boyfriend? Why does everybody have to be in love with somebody?

She'd loved him as much as he'd let her. More than he'd let her.

The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the Pants --- like picking your nose.

She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.