What being home-schooled has taught me, more than anything, is what a waste of a life high school is.

I don't know what it is about death that makes it so hard. I suppose it's the one-sided communication; the fact that we never get to ask our loved one if she suffered, if she is happy wherever she is now...if she is somewhere. It's the question mark that comes with death that we can't face, not the period.

How do you tell an adult that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that she's stopped believing the impossible can happen?

My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.

Here's my question: What age are you when you're in Heaven?

Justification is a remarkable thing-takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.

You couldn't have strength without weakness, you couldn't have light without dark, you couldn't have love without loss