“To be truly popular, it has to look like something you are, when in reality, it's what you make yourself. ”

“I know what it's like when the things you believe make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.”

“You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.”

“when you want something so desperately, you shake with the need for it. you tell yourself that you don't need more than one sip, because it's just the taste you crave, and once it's on your tongue you will be able to make it last alifetime. you dream of it at night. you see a thousand mile-high obstacles between where you stand and what you want, and you convince yourself you have the power to hurdle them. you tell yourself this even when, leaping the first block, you wind up bruised and bloodied and flattened.”

“I know how difficult it can be when the image you've had of something doesn't match its reality; when the friend beside you turns into a monster.”

“He knew that there was a difference between something that makes you happy and something thatdoesn’t make you unhappy. The trick was convincing yourself these were one and the same.”

“When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to claim.”