“If someone were crushed to death trying to get a frosty can of Diet Coke, it wouldn't be my fault. I'd tried to raise the issue.”

“I tried to whip some feelings up but the inside of my chest was as hollow as an empty rubbish bin; totally, absolutely dried up, with my poor, tiny heart lying at the bottom like a crushed coke can.”

“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”

“Finally, you have to be able to get over a crush if it doesn't work out. A crush is like a love disease. It can drive you mad. Try not to let it get you down.”

“I was a vampire, and... someone was trying to call me?When my parents had said that not even death could pry me from my mobile phone, I'd thought they were joking. I wriggled around in the narrow coffin until I could reach the ringing handset.”

“It would be like a cleansing diet. The problem was, the only diet I'd ever been on backfired. Once I tried to go an entire month without chocolate. Not one bite. At the end of two weeks, I broke down and binged on more chocolate that I would have eaten in three months. I hoped my chocolate-free diet didn't foreshadow what would happen if I tried to avoid Patch.”