Here," she said. "This is for you." "I didn't really get you anything," I sputtered. "I mean, I didn't know that you were going to be here, and--" "Don't worry. It's your embarrassment at not having the thought that counts.

He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything - he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that's the danger with firsts - you lose all sense of proportion.

I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.

I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.

There is the sudden. There is the eventual. And in between, there is the living.

You have to trust the words. They do not create anything more than themselves.

My main piece of advice would be dont worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also dont be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and dont be afraid.