She heard the very beginning of a smile in his voice--a fetal smile--and it very nearly killed her.

But the explanations fell apart in her hands. Everything true was too hard to write--he was too much to lose. Everything she felt for him was too hot to touch.

As I moved to less and less diverse places in my life, I realized that white people dont talk about race amongst themselves!

I don’t think there’s enough of her left.

If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.

It’s just … everything. There are too many people. And I don’t fit in. I don’t know how to be. Nothing that I’m good at is the sort of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn’t matter—and being good with words. And when those things do matter, it’s only because people want something from me. Not because they want me.

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.