I realized it was like looking into the sun—you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else.

All teenagers knew this was true. The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face. For years, parents tell you that you can be anything, have anything, do anything. That was why she'd been so eager to grow up-until she got to adolescence and hit a big fat wall ofreality. As it turned out, she couldn't have anything she wanted. You didn't get to be pretty or smart or popular just because you wanted it. You didn't control your own destiny, you were too busy trying to fit in.

And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.

Why do some memories bleed out of nowhere and others stay locked behind doors?

sometimes words are not big enough to contain all the feelings you are trying to pour into them.

When you are a kid you have your own language, and unlike French or Spanish or whatever you start learning in fourth grade, this one you are born with, and eventually lose...Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult...is only a slow sewing it shut.

How do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?