When they separated, the freckleless spot between Pete's eyes was bright red. Before anything else could be said or done, May grabbed her bike and hopped on. She waited until she was six houses down to turn and see if he was still standing in the driveway watching her. He was. She stopped for just a moment, and they caught each other's eyes. Then he slowly started walking backward toward the house. May couldn't see that well, considering that her eyes were still a little blurry and he was far away, but it looked like he was smiling.

New start or not, there was a line to be drawn, and that line was singing musicals to yourself as serious psychological motivation.

Having your back scratched is not the only reason to be married, but it is a good one, especially for those spots that are so hard to reach by yourself.

Sometimes it is worth any amount of suffering just to prevent giving your parents the opportunity to be right.

Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.

I had one class in the morning, the mysteriously named "Further Maths". It was two hours long and so deeply frightening that I think I went into a trance.

I am a mass of contradictions.