I tried to avoid Mimi. Her presence seemed to call forth every rejection I'd ever experienced-the teachers who'd looked at me as though I held no promise, the boys who didn't like me back. Around her, I became fourteen again.

The only relationships I haven't wrecked right away were the ones that wrecked me later.

I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

Up until that moment, I'd been at the earliest stage of love, when you feel it will turn you into the better person you want to be. Now, his gentle voice and sage advice took me to a later stage: I felt I needed to pretend to be a better person than I was so he'd keep loving me. This was hard because it made me hate him.

She seems sort of lost.' I thought, Lost how? How am I lost? Suddenly I felt lost.

Basically, all anyone has to do is ask me for fun details or tell me to be creative, and my mind turns to mud. I am instantly the most boring person you've ever met.

It's perfectly natural to doubt your judgment about doubting your judgment.