“Use all the ugliness youre feeling to make something beautiful”

“If Im writing, at least I dont feel as paralyzed.”

“Maybe that's what growing up is. When you can't be who you are and do what everyone's telling you to do at the same time anymore. - Rowie from Sister Mischief”

“Part of me is afraid that everyone will laugh, that Im a caricature of myself.”

“It's not like I want to get discovered, exactly, the way you hear actresses getting picked off at diners. It's more about my own road to discovery like pecking my way out of a shell. I just want to...”

“This is an unbearable kiss, unbearable, unreal, unimaginable. - Esme from Sister Mischief”

“Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.”

“You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.”

“Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.”

“He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.”

“I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.”

“To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of em...”

“Imagine," she said, after registering, "a whole city of gorgeous Italian guys. They can say anything to me, and it'll be sexy." "You'll be so easy," Rashmi said. "Would you like-ah to order-ah the ...”

“Jennifer now understood the meaning of the cadence: the black and white drawing, the watercolor painting,and the notes. The cadence had at last developed into a concerto for violin, the instrument ...”

“I spent the period reading the first novel assigned for English. And wow. If I hadn't realized I was in France yet, I do now. Because Like Water for Chocolate has sex in it. LOTS of sex.”