Finally, I asked how you got a boy to like you back. She said, 'Just be yourself,' as though I had any idea who that might be.

Sometimes you’re loved because of your weaknesses. What you can’t do is sometimes more compelling than what you can.

He tried to smile, but it was just a shape his mouth made.

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.

I guess love is the real suspension of disbelief.

Before college, I hadn't voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn't think I'd understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher's interpretations of what we read.

Nice,' I say, realizing only afterward that I've mimicked her, a bad habit of mine; I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.