“She's like a kindness ninja. Sneaking around in order to help people.”

“Maybe the adults around me were too cynical and old to do anything to help innocent people like Mrs. Kahn or Charlie, or the black kids who were called nigger at school, or the girls Tim Miller groped on the bus. Maybe they were numb enough to blame the system for things they were too lazy to change.”

“I reminded myself that the one thing Jenny Flick couldn't buy, no matter what she used as currency, was a ticket to drive on the high road next to people like me.”

“Most people don't think past themselves. I know that. But I want Vera to see other people. To respect other people. To realize that the whole world is not here for her. I want her to see her duty to the world, not the other way around.”

“Is love something that will always be available? Will it always be confined and untrustworthy like it feels today? Is there enough to go around? Am I wasting mine on strangers?”

“She wore too much eyeliner then, at age thirteen, and now, at eighteen, she wears so much black under her eyes, she looks like a slutty linebacker raccoon.”

“I felt a mix of wanting to kill him and wanting to kiss him at the same time. When I thought of what true love must be like, I figured it must be like this, and not the stupid eighth grade infatuation most girls my age felt. True love includes an equal part of good and bad, but true sticks around and doesn't run off to Vegas with a podiatrist.”