In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.

There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.

There is a small window of opportunity for freckled girls to tan.

You don't understand me. I'm a teenager. I've got problems!

They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked higher than the pyramids; they had killed themselves over the failure to find a love none of us could ever be. In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Every letter was a love letter.

Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French.