The mistakes you make now count. Not for everything, and not forever. But they do matter, and they shape you.If you take nothing else from what I've been through, at least remember this: make your choices well. Because you'll always be accountable for them. That's what being an adult is all about.

You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.

Lissa lowered her voice and added, "I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines." "Shave your head?" I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. "You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people's bare heads are? They've got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won't know until it's too late and you're flat-out bald.

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.

But there was something I liked about the idea of those seeds buried so deep having at least a chance to emerge

I'm just writing what I know. I've never been much of a reader of fantasy, and I think you write what you, personally, enjoy reading.

Even if you couldn't see it beneath the surface, molecules were bonding, energy pushing up slowly, as something worked do hare, all alone to grow.