“Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visit...”

“I stare past her at the inspirational kitten posters. There's one of a soaking-wet kitten climbing out of a toilet with the caption "it could be worse!""Just tell me whatever it is you're thinking,...”

“High school will probably be better. I mean, some kids will still be jerks, but it's not so bad if you have at least one good friend. Someone who gets you.”

“Would've been useful when I was about eight," I said. "I used to have wicked nightmares." I did, too: stupid dreams about being chased by Elmo. A psycho Elmo with eyes like that Chucky doll. I'd wa...”

“In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.”

“Sometimes, this disapproval of how you are managing your pain crosses over to disbelief that you are in as much pain as you say you are. They dont believe that your pain is a legitimate enough reas...”

“Don't call anyone a devil, because within you, you can experience hell and the devil, and the devil is nothing, but you!”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“They're going to get the death penalty. They'll be strung up and made to be laughed at out in the streets and made examples of!”

“It would take me a long time to understand how systems inflict pain and hardship in people's lives and to learn that being kind in an unjust system is not enough.”

“In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an ...”