when there's an elephant in the room, you can't pretend it isn't there and just discuss the ants.

the whole idea of boys being people you would actually choose to spend time with was pretty much totally incomprehensible to me. i could never think of anything to say to them, and they seemed equally dumbstruck by my presence.

That's what I love about writing. Once you get the words down on paper, in print, they start to make sense. It's like you don't know what you think until it dribbles from your brain down your arm and into your hand and out through your fingers and shows up on the computer screen, and you read it and realize: That's really true; I believe that.

you give everyone the benefit of the doubt. they don't always deserve it.

sometimes people think they're above the laws the rest of us live by. they're blind to their own imperfections.

...and she said we all had to find God inside ourselves, in the things we loved most.

People changed lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favorite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world -- even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren’t supposed to change? Who made that rule?