“I'm not telling you what I look like in any detail. I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine's physical attributes... First of all, it's boring. You should be able to imagine me without all the gory details of my hairstyle or the size of my thighs. And second, it really bothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred. As if readers will only like a character who's ideal - or completely shattered. Give me a break. People have got to be smarter than that.”

“Roo: What’s your definition of popularity?Hutch: I used to think people were popular because they were good-looking, or nice, or funny, or good at sports. Roo: Aren’t they?Hutch: I’d think, if I could just be those things, I’d – you know – have more friends than I do. But in seventh grade, when Jackson and those guys stopped hanging out with me, I tried as hard as I could to get them to like me again. But then . . . (shaking his head as if to clear it) I don’t really wanna talk about it. Roo: What happened? Hutch: They just did some ugly stuff to me is all. And really, it was for the best. Roo: Why?Hutch: Because I was cured. I realized the popular people weren’t nice or funny or great-looking. They just had power, and they actually got the power by teasing people or humiliating them – so people bonded to them out of fear. Roo: Oh. Hutch: I didn’t want to be a person who could act like that. I didn’t want to ever speak to any person who could act like that. Roo: OhHutch: So then I wasn’t trying to be popular anymore. Roo: Weren’t you lonely?Hutch: I didn’t say it was fun. (He bites his thumbnail, bonsai dirt and all.) I said it was for the best.”

“And this is my life, getting dumped with no warning. Or liking people who don't like me back, or who don't like me enough, or not as much as they like someone else.”

“Or is that the nature of lust? It's like an urge that disregards all the stuff that your brain knows you actually think. I wonder if guys feel like this all the time. Or maybe if everyone feels like this all the time - everyone besides me - and that's why people act like such half-wits.”

“Noel: A lot of people see friends as something you have on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. If someone wants to read your updates and you want to read their updates, then you’re friends. You don’t ever have to see each other. But that seems like a stupid definition to me. Roo: Yeah.Noel: Although on the other hand, rethink. Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they’re boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says, “Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed” – because he likes you anyway. He’ll tolerate your junk. Roo: You have lots of friends. Noel: No, I don’t. Roo: You do. You know everyone at school. You get invited to parties. Noel: I get invited to parties, yeah. And I know people. But I don’t want their updates. Roo: Oh. Noel: And I sincerely doubt they want mine. Roo: I want your updates. Noel: I want your updates. (He looks down, bashfully.) I do. I want all your updates, Ruby.”

“I sound like an idiot. But what else am I supposed to say? My parents are getting a divorce? I'm practically flunking drawing and literature? My best friend's barely speaking to me and changes the subject when I ask where she was on Saturday night? I think about you all the time and I want your body?”

“Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said.“Don’t you want it?”“Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.”“Why?”Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?”“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said.“So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.”