...Kaitlyn never wore open-toed shoes on account of how she hated her feet because she felt her second toes were too long, as if the second toe was a window into the soul or something.

I came to the conclusion a while ago that there is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another. It was, for a time, what kept me going: Each morning, for a little while, I got to feel the weight of the yoke on my back as I pulled the ancient cart of my species.

In general-like not just in fiction but in life-it doesn't work out well when someone imagines someone else as a manic pixie dream girl or an Edward Cullen or anything other than a full, complex human being. That said, while I've tried to reflect that in my books, I don't think I've always succeeded, because I am always running up against my own insufficiencies and biases etc.

If you don't say the honest thing, it never becomes true.

Patients are almost always preceded by their parents, because no matter how fast an ambulance can drive, terrified parents can drive faster.

I stand in this parking lot, realizing that I’ve never been this far from home, and here is this girl I love and cannot follow. I hope this is the hero’s errand, because not following her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

If I'm too old to be Emo, how do you account for the very Emo and very old Edgar Allan Poe? Checkmate!