I've only been gone a week," I reminded him. Well, a week's a long time. It's seven days. Which is one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Which is ten thousand, eighty minutes. Which is six hundred thousand, for hundred seconds.

Oh, that's just great. I come all the way back here, risking major brain cell burnout, and you don't even believe me? I'm basically guaranteeing myself a lifetime of heartbreak, and all you have to say is that you think I'm not right in the head?

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.

I'll put a bullet through my own brain. Let alone wait for stark to do it. Your sister will drive me to it, Howard. No offense.

Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.

But it’s there. Just because I haven’t told anyone doesn’t mean it isn’t there, all the time, lurking in the back of my mind, like one those NSync songs you can’t get out of your head.

Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice. Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love. "Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.