"Why are breakfast food breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast?" "Hazel, eat." "But why?" I asked. "I mean seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an egg, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich."

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.

Take a picture of this so Isaac can see it when they invent robot eyes.

Colin emphatically pushed the book cover shut when he finished reading. "Did you like it?" His dad asked. "Yup," Colin said. He liked all books, because he liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

That was part of her, and you used to know it. It's like now you only care about the Alaska you made up.

The joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.

Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.