Do you know how beautiful you are?' I shook my head 'I'm not. But you make me fell like I am.' I wanted to be beautiful. To him. For him. I didn't care how anybody else saw me. Only Ethan.

She's incredible, not that she's perfect. But you once said imperfections create character.

...Things happened when you were little. Things you don't remember now, and don't want to. But they need to escape, need to worm their way out of that dark place in your brain where you keep them stashed.

He's solid. "You're fractured." He's hopeful. "You're hopeless." He's always there. "You're half there." He's faithful. "You're so not." He's giving. "You're afraid to give." He's honest. "You lie all the time." He's loving. "You don't know how to love.

HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so WHY push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is WHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway, WHEN did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person WHO lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you - WHAT is perfect.

In my books my characters experience things as they are. My books allow youth an honest look at important issues affecting them. As adults we want to believe things like sex abuse or drug use are not happening anymore, or happening less and less, but that's not the case and we need to acknowledge that. We can't make life prettier for youth, but we can arm them.

Loss is loss. Doesn't take death to create it.