The better you learn to take care of yourself, the less you settle for being around people who can't or won't treat you as well as you're accustomed.

She opened her mouth but did not immediately speak, and I felt, simultaneously, the impulse to coax the words from her and the impulse to suppress them. I always thought I wanted to know a secret, or I wanted an event to unfold – I wanted my life to start – but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.

I feel like as I've gotten older I've unfortunately come to the decision that a lot of people who seem normal and boring maybe are normal and boring.

I heard Gillian say, with a laugh, At this point, does anyone expect the liberals not to be total hypocrites? She was oblivious to the possibility that perhaps not everyone present shared her views, and I thought, You're sixteen. How can you already be a Republican?

And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts.

There are a lot of things in the world that are a lot weirder than psychic abilities, that we accept as true.

High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.