Scared isn't a good excuse. Scared is the excuse everyone has always used.

She has enough black eyeliner on to outline a corpse, and her skin's so pale she looks like she's just broken dawn.

Like many people, I feel like celebrating. Remember this feeling. It is human, and can help us understand when others express bloodlust.

People talk about the courage of cancer patients, and I do not deny that courage. I had been poked and stabbed and poisoned for years, and still I trod on. But make no mistake: In that moment, I would have been very, very happy to die.

She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.

That's the mystery, isn't it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape---the world or the end of it?

So here's my advice: Study broadly and without fear. Learn a language if you can, because that will make your life more interesting. Read a little bit every day. But more importantly, surround yourself with people who you like and make cool stuff with them. In the end, what you do isn't going to be nearly as interesting or important as who you do it with.