Don't confine yourself to a select group of friends, often known as a clique. Cliques by definition leave people out. Lock yourself into one, and you'll never know how many terrific friendships you may be missing.

Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

And the more you love someone, the safer it is to be mad at them. Love can handle mad, no problem.

So," he said, "we ourselves will be the candle flames." He put his hands on his chest. "Feel your hearts, how warm they are.

Of course, all of their words for a thousand years could not fill the hole left by his mother, but they could raise a loving fence around it so he didn't keep falling in.

The blanket was there, but it was the boy's embrace that covered and warmed him.

This was the ghetto: where children grow down instead of up.