Listen,” she said. “I may not be what you want right now, but I’m all you’ve got.

I remember for that one moment, I believe I was hitch hiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground.

She stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.

My mother moves so fast I do not even see it coming. But she slaps my face hard enough to make my head snap backward. She leaves a print that stains me long after it’s faded. Just so you know: shame is five-fingered.

The process of growing up was nothing more than figuring out what doors hadn't yet been slammed in your face.

When I think about writers who use fiction as social commentary and to raise social awareness but who are also very popular, I think of Dickens.

I didn't want to see her because it would make me feel better. I came because without her, it's hard to remember who I am.