free time is an illusion. It's what you get when you die and the gods reward you for a life spent working from dawn until midnight.

You look as scary as a buttered muffin.

I will tell the stork-man.

Why do I get the feeling that if you give me a hard time, I'll tell all of our year-mates your family nickname is Meathead?

You have an audience that is fairly well grounded in the real world. You serve them and yourself best by making everything as real as possible.

There's plenty more fish in the sea than Prince Jonathan," he told her softly. "And this particular fish loves you with all his crooked heart." -George to Alanna

Publishers have realized that, unlike the previous time period, American teenagers are both smarter and require more topical material than they had been giving them before that. For one thing, they'll read thicker books. Besides, has anybody looked at the news or read the newspapers recently?