High school sucks. People who say those were the best years of your life - those people are liars... Who wants the best years of their life to be in *high school*? High school is something *everybody* should be ready to lose.

...it was never a good idea to date a foreigner. You can never tell when they're lying.' 'hello. Dave was BRITISH.

Adam gave me a scandalized look. "Fraternizing with the enemy!" he cried. "For shame, wench!

No one wants to pursue anything creative anymore, because that's too risky. They may not get the kind of return on the financial investment they've made in their education that they think they should.

Chaz looks me dead in the eye and says, 'Why yes, Lizzie. I’m manically depressed because the girl I’ve finally realized I’ve always been in love with, and who I was beginning to think just might love me back, turned around and got herself engaged to my best friend, who, frankly, doesn’t deserve her. Does that answer your question?

This was something you had to work through on you own," Jason said. "Besides, I knew you'd do the right thing." "Oh, right," I said. I wanted to throw something at him. I really did. "And if I hadn't?" Now Jason brandished something he'd been holding behind his back. It was a golf club. "I figured Big Bertha here would drive them away," he said.

Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We'd consume them like M&M's, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there's almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens.