When you publish a book, you do so in part to end the silence. All censorship is silence. I would never, as an author, feel right requiring a young person whose family would object to the book to read it. Just as I would never force that person to read it, I would ask those folks to not force others not to read it. To me, that is just good manners.

The outside lights were on, and it was snowing, and it looked like magic. Like we were somewhere else. Like we were someplace better.

The fact that one of these ladies was my mom made me particularly sad because my mom is beautiful. And she’s always on a diet. Sometimes, my dad calls her beautiful, but she cannot hear him.

When you think back to your first kiss, your hair is perfect and she was wearing a cool outfit. We remember it with restraint and we remember it with style. We remember it as idealistically as you can think.

Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense.

I don't even remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere.

They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend.