Then they scrambled through the window and into the darkness, determined to turn themselves into what they were not.

[I] don't think I was trying to kill myself. I just wanted to hurt, and understand exactly whay I was hurting. This made sense: you cut, you felt pain, period.

The problem isn’t with rock lyrics, it’s with the fabric of this society itself.

You need to learn to write on demand, and to get critiqued without flinching. When someone can rip your work to shreds without it feeling as though your arm has been hacked off, you're ready to send your novel off to an agent.

Some people, they get down in a hole so deep they can't figure out what to hold on to.

I know Mark,' I reply. 'And I don't like him.' 'But I do. And part of being social means being civil to someone you don't like.' 'That's stupid. It's a huge world. why not just get up and walk away?' 'Because that's rude,' Jess explains. 'I think it's rude to stick a smile on your face and pretend you like talking to someone when in reality you'd rather be sticking bamboo slivers under your fingernails.

We could all be lucky. We could all be what we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be.