I've read a lot of bad books. I used to review books for a living, and when you're a reviewer you read tons of terrible books.

I hated hurting him. Most of the time, I could forget about it, but the inexorable truth is this: They might be glad to have me around, but I was the alpha and the omega of my parents' suffering.

Colin thought about the dork mantra: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie.

I think people who are religious are more likely to want one around, but it's a very secular position.

Congratulations! You're a woman. Now die.

I shaved this morning for precisely that reason. I was like, 'Well, you never know when someone is going to clamp down on your calf and try to suck out the snake poison.

"Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will," she says. The sky is like a monochromatic contemporary painting, drawing me in with its illusion of depth, pulling me up. "Yeah, that's true," I say. But then after I think about it for a second, I add, "But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all."