he'd know that I think that . . . well, that bending an enemy's will through military force is the absolute last way a nation ought to go about solving their problems.

So take my advice: whatever you do? Don’t blink

Didn't your mother ever tell you," Rob asked, "that you're supposed to play hard to get?" I looked at his lips. I probably don't need to tell you that they're really nice lips, kind of full and strong-looking. "What," I wanted to know, "is that going to get me?

Foxy girls know that silence may be golden-but only for four seconds. Anything longer and you're heading for Awkward Avenue.

I've come to the conclusion that, aside from Nazis, the Taliban, and possibly the honey badger, there is no one on the planet more merciless than a teenage girl once she's decided she dislikes you.

Not like this vision before us, who was shaking water out of his slightly overlong reddish-brown hair as he leaned over to lay down his board (revealing, as he did so, the fact that beneath his baggy swim trunks—so weighted down with water that they had sunk somewhat dangerously low on his hips—lurked what appeared to be an exceptionally well-formed gluteus maximus)

But then I remembered something Grandmere had once assured me of: No one has ever died of embarrassment-never, not once in the whole history of time.