“I just want my stories to be mine.”

“I kiss her. I kiss her and kiss her. I try not to bite her lip. She tastes like vodkahoney.”

“Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as a time of adolescencejust getting through to the real part of your lifebut it's more tha...”

“There's a girl calm people don't know about. It's a girl teen standstill. A motionless peace. It doesn't come from anywhere but inside us, and it only lasts for a few years. It's born from being a ...”

“What we need, is a break out. Out of our lives, out of Seattle, out of the dumb script of girl.”

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”

“I just want my stories to be mine.”