sometimes it's okay to cheat on things - but don't ever cheat on people. because once you start, it's very hard to stop. you find out how easy it is to do.

Teenagers are extremely funny, and extremely clever and intellectually curious. But they're also willing to ask questions about the meaning of life without disguising them around irony, and ask questions about what are our responsibilities to other people without having to couch it in irony.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

I ran like a cheetah - well, like a cheetah that smoked too much.

I like this world. I like drinking champagne. I like not smoking. I like Dutch people speaking Dutch.

Her underwear, her jeans, the comforter, my corduroys and my boxers between us, I thought. Five layers, and yet I felt it, the nervous warmth of touching – a pale reflection of the fireworks of one mouth on another, but a reflection nonetheless. And in the almostness of the moment, I cared at least enough. I wasn’t sure whether I liked her, and doubted whether I could trust her, but I cared at least enough to try to find out. Her on my bed, wide green eyes staring down at me. The enduring mystery of her sly, almost smirking, smile. Five layers between us.

It was nice - in the dark and the quiet... and her eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing.