Sometimes, mothers say and do things that seem like they don't want their kids... but when you look more closely, you realize that they're doing those kids a favor. They're just trying to give them a better life.

The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.

Teachers deserve respect," I explain. "Why do they get it for free, when everyone else has to earn it?

In this new place we've found, sometimes there aren't words, because the truth can be even more difficult than the lies.

Being a teenager isn't all that different from being part of someone else's story. There's always someone who thinks they know better than you do

I don't know what I was thinking, coming out here. There are no silver bullets in life, there's just the long, messy climb out of the pit you've dug youself.

You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.