When you finally start to write something, do not let yourself stop...even when you are convinced it's the worst garbage ever. This is the biggest caveat for beginning writers. Instead, force yourself to finish what you began, and THEN go back and edit it.

The thing that most people didn't understand, if they weren't in his line if work, was that a rape victim and a victim of a fatal accident were both gone forever. The difference was that the rape victim still had to go through the motions of being alive.

She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me?

My brother believed in all sorts of mythical creatures: pixies, dragons, werewolves, honest men.

See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it

What could you give me," I ask, my voice shaking, "to make me forget ... that you forgot about me?

Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.