What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

Statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

And he thinks that if his soul had a form, this is what it would be. A baby sleeping in his arms.

What's the point of living if you're going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don't shut it away.

It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years." "So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked. "No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell.

We'll never be ready. So I guess that means we're as ready as we'll ever be.