There's no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers.

Seventeen's not so young. A hundred years ago people got married when they were practically our age." "Yeah, that was before electricity and the Internet. A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man's life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life?

I loved him in a way that you can really only do the first time around. It's the kind of love that doesn't know better and doesn't want to-it's dizzy and foolish and fierce. That kind of love is really a one-time-only thing.

Do you know what it's like to like someone so much you can't stand it and know that they'll never feel the same way

I've always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.

Sometimes questions can be more cruel than insults.

Aching familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty.