We're better off. But I don't know if the world's better off. I don't know if the two are the same thing.

The only use she has for the word fun is to make the word funeral.

There is no such thing as a soulmate...and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.

Do you want to guess what's in here?" I asked Dash. "I think I've got it figured out already. There's a new supply of red notebooks in there, and you want us to fill them in with clues about the works of, say, Nicholas Sparks." "Who?" I asked. Please, no more broody poets. I couldn't keep up. "You don't know who Nicholas Sparks is?" Dash asked. I shook my head. "Please don't ever find out," he said.

I feel like you may be a special and kind person. And I would like to make it my business to know special and kind people. Especially if they are boys my age.

There's the usual suspects in there, Green Day and The Clash and The Smiths, yeah, but there's also Ella and Frank, even Dino, some Curtis Mayfield and Minor Threat and Dusty Springfield and Belle & Sebastian, and as I flip through his musical life, getting to know his tastes, I must acknowledge that not only am I not frigid, but I also may be multi-orgasmic.

Somewhere between a friend and acquaintance—a frequaintance, as it were.