As a reader, I don't feel a story has an obligation to make me happy. I want stories to show me a bigger world than the one I know.

Tiny Cooper is splayed out across the thin carpet, using his backpack as a pillow. He’s wearing skinny jeans, which look very much like denim sausage casings.

I think one of the most important differences between us is that you are excellent at living in a way that is commensurate with your values, whereas I am not. For instance, I didn’t recycle until I watched An Inconvenient Truth and I’m still sort of iffy on it. And also, I didn’t vote in 2000, even though I could have voted in Florida *hits self on head repeatedly* Ahh George Bush! It’s all my fault! God! So stupid! *sigh* Let’s change the subject. Also, we have vastly different happy dances.

We have bottled all the stars this evening, my young friend.

Everywhere man blames nature and fate, yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character, and passions, his mistakes, and weaknesses."--Democritus An Abundance of Katherines---John Green

What can we do?" Mom asked again. I shrugged. But she kept asking, as if there were something she could do, until I just kind of crawled across the couch into her lap and my dad came over and held my legs really tight and I wrapped my arms all the way around my mom's middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in.

But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.