“Little Alice, all hollowed out, so easy to smash into a million little pieces.”

“Imagine a guy. He’s a little taller than you, with perfect skin, skin that just screams “touch me!” and dark hair and gorgeous blue eyes and he looks so sweet and he is sweet. And then have him blush a little.”

“That's you, right?' he asks me. 'Yeah.' 'Cute. Not that I, uh, think little kids are cute. Just that you were cute. I mean, you can see how you turned out to be so...oh.”

“I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.”

“I always wanted to be grown up. When I was little I couldn’t wait to be a teenager and go to high school. When I got there I wanted to be done with it, wanted to get out into the world, the real one, and live in it. The thing is, that world doesn’t exist. All growing up means is that you realize no one will come along to fix things. No one will come along to save you.”

“It's bullshit. It's so easy to label people, to look at a list of symptoms and say, "This is who you are. This is what you are.”

“There are a million rules for being a girl. There are a million things you have to do to get through each day. High school has things that can trip you up, ruin you, people say one thing and mean another, and you have to know all the rules, you have to know what you can and can't do.”