This is what happens: somebody—girl usually—got a free spirit, doesn't get on too good with her parents. These kids, they're like tied-down helium balloons. They strain against the string and strain against it, and then something happens, and that string gets cut, and they just float away. And maybe you never see the balloon again . . . Or maybe three or four years from now, or three or four days from now, the prevailing winds take the balloon back home . . . But listen, kid, that string gets cut all the time.

The Side Effects of Dying in Your Pants isn't really funny… Alright, it's a little funny.

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.

Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed.

I just want you to be happy. If that’s with me or with someone else or with nobody. I just want you to be happy.

Books are like tweets, except longer.

He liked the idea of coffee quite a lot—a warm drink that gave you energy and had been for centuries associated with sophisticates and intellectuals. But coffee itself tasted to him like caffeinated stomach bile.