You can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.

We get crazy when we can't make things be like the world tells us they are". She looked back out the window. "It was that way for me and your brother, I think. I mean, how could I have loved him that last year? I didn't even know who he was. He was way more attracted to drugs and bikers and that whole lifestyle than he was to me. But somebody told me that if you really loved somebody,you stayed with him no matter what. You had to fight for him." She laughe. "Hell, I was convinced.

...we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it.

Something about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.

Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.

Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.

Beware the short terminal guy with nothing to lose.