That's what makes best friends. It's not whether or not you live on the same block or go to the same school, but how you feel about each other in your hearts.

I feel like the world stopped. And I got off...and then it started spinning again, but too fast for me to hop back on. I feel like I'm still trying to get a...to get some kind of foothold on living

I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much...so, so much.

I do believe that books can change lives and give people this kind of language they wouldn't have had otherwise.

I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.

Mama says it's okay to be on the quiet side—if quiet means you're listening, watching, taking it all in.

I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.