All along — not only since she left, but for a decade before — I had been imagining her without listening, without knowing that she made as a poor a window as I did. And so I could not imagine her as a person who could feel fear, who could feel isolated in a roomful of people, who could be shy about her record collection because it was too personal to share. Someone who might have read travel books to escape having to live in the town that so many people escape to. Someone who — because no one thought she was a person — had no one to really talk to.

Read a lot. Read broadly... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored... Write a lot.

No," I said. And maybe it was only because Alaska couldn't hit the brakes and I couldn't hit the accelerator.

There are many more jobs out there than you have ever heard of. Your dream job might not yet exist. If you had told 'College Me' that I would become a professional YouTuber, I would've been like, "That is not a word, and it never should be."

Life works best when we think of people as people.

Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence

I wondered whether I could find a Great Perhaps here at all or whether I had made a grand miscalculation.