“Having friends was really important, wasn't it? Even if sometimes they did stuff which upset you?”

“I think... I think sometimes that's how it is. Sometimes people have to go before you get stuff. Before you can really get it.”

“despair threatens to overwhelm me.i have no life. my friends only tolerate me, they don't really like me. i'm just useful to have around. if i wasn't here they wouldn't really miss me. i am not important, not popular enough.”

“Sometimes letting the truth out lets people heal, and sometimes it makes things worse. And you couldn't really know which, until you did it, and sometimes only later.”

“Your first kiss isn’t as important as your last. The math test really didn’t matter. The pie really did. The stuff you’re good at and the stuff you’re bad at are just different parts of the same thing. Same goes for the people you love and the people you don’t—and the people who love you and the people who don’t. The only thing that mattered was that you cared about a few people. Life is really, really short.”

“So as a seventh grader, no, you weren't friends with people you didn't like. But sometimes you also weren't friends with people you did like, which was complicated, and which didn't make any sense if you tried to explain it. Sometimes things just changed. That's where the sadness came in.”