And yet still I worried. I like being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying.

You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.

I stood under the awning for a moment, but finally I decided that being in a bad mood with your friends beats being in a bad mood without them.

So I was ugly. I was never fat, really, and I never wore headgear or had zits or anything. But I was ugly. I don't even know how ugly and pretty get decided - maybe there's like a secret cabal of boys who meet in the locker room and decide who's ugly and who's hot, because as far as I can remember, there was no such thing as a hot fourth-grader. - Lindsey Lee Wells

I figured something out," he said aloud. "The future is unpredictable." Hassan said, "Sometimes the kafir likes to say massively obvious things in a really profound voice.

You say into my cracks and I saw into yours.

I kept it for myself like a keepsake, as if sharing the memory might lead to its dissipation.