The bottom line is, what defines you isn't how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it's one more. you're all good.

You're not supposed to have it all figured out in high school. If you knew it all, and it was the best, it's all downhill from there.

Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are.

It's hard to do," I said. Wes looked at me. "What is?" I swallowed, not sure why I'd said this out loud. "Get it right.

People don't change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less

The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.