He has no right to threaten my boyfriends. I'm eighteen. An adult. I don't need his help. I can threaten my boyfriends myself.

I looked at you... and saw your goodness, your hope, and your faith. Those are what make you beautiful. So, so beautiful. So it was't my hair?

People often ask where I get my inspiration from, and I always say I have no good answer because, well, inspiration comes from everywhere: people, places, memories.

Hey show some respect. They’re real people with names. Carla and Krissy” He frowned. “Or was it Missy?

Love is . . .” An old memory with Adrian came back to me, and some of the turbulent emotion I always carried within me these days welled up in my chest. It was stupid, feeling so lovesick when he’d been gone less than a day, but I couldn’t get him or the ways he described love out of my head. “. . . a flame in the dark. A breath of warmth on a winter’s night. A star that guides you home.

Sorry, Ms. Terwilliger. I'm flattered that you think I'm such an upstanding person, but I'm already caught up in one epic battle of good versus evil. I don't need another.

You want to be an alchemist so badly? Don't wait to react to the immediate problem. Plan ahead. Look at the big picture and you won't ever have to deal with that problem. Better to save yourself from a major catastrophe than drag your feet over a bunch of little inconveniences.