You need to figure out what you want, Josh. If that means you need to swim against the tide to get it, at least youre aiming for something that could make you very happy.

It's hard to be disappointed when what you expected turns out to be true.

Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don't understand. Thoughts that aren't even true—that aren't really how we feel—but they're running through our heads anyway because they're interesting to think about.

I didn't humiliate him by pointing it out because that's not how you treat friends. You don't judge them. You don't humiliate them. I bet he's been judging me all along.

I simply wanted a kiss. I was a freshman girl who had never been kissed. Never. But I liked the boy, he liked me, and I was going to kiss him. That's the story, the whole story, right there.

Betrayal. It's one of the worst feelings.

Personally, I never understood the power of having books written about your experience - whatever that experience may be - until I wrote one and started hearing from teens. I just got an email from a reader who said that "Thirteen Reasons Why" was the first time they had felt understood. A book shouldn't be anybody's first time feeling understood and that's where censorship bothers me. These books need to be out there.