“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”

“I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same.”

“and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a h...”

“I'm lonely. Why do you think I had to learn to act so independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has it's own zip code. Plus...”

“The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained wa...”

“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me', said some idiot who,1. Didn't realize HOW much words hurt2. Wasn't so smart”

“Silence prevailed everywhere, like the gloomy dumbness after the riots in the city.”

“You," Seven pronounced, "are a train wreck of sexual history."But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, I'll jump in front of the tracks. I'll even tie myself down in front of the...”

“I love the way he smelled whenever his head dipped close to hear what I was sayinglike the sun striking th cheek of a tomato, or soap drying in the hood of a car. I loved the way his hand felt on m...”

“So Lightning says to Mud,What would happen if I struck your blood?And Mud says, Brother, It would hurt, And make me the motherOf every living thing.But, Fire Boy, you aint lifting my grass skirtUnt...”

“Lightning has no mercy.”

“At that instant a dazzling claw of lightning streaked down the length of the sky. The hedge and the distant trees seemed to leap forward in the brilliance of the flash. Immediately upon it came the...”