“Here I've been telling him things in my head for weeks, writing long, frenzied missives to him I know I'll never send, and now that I have him less than two feet away, I'm struck dumb.Fantastic.”

“From what I've seen, a girl's got to behave like a mental midget before she'll get any action in this town. If resisting that makes me a freak, so be it. I may die with my hymen intact, but at least I'll have my dignity" ~ Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty”

“Went home briefly to get my halter dress for Hero's party, and Mom was waiting for me at the kitchen table. Either she's psychic, or she totally reads my journal, because I haven't said a word about Ben, but somehow she knows something is up.She was siting with a tray of peanut butter crackers, milk, and about twenty pamphlets on STDs she got from her friend Connie, a nurse at Kaiser. When she started showing me pictures of genital warts, I put my cracker down and said, 'Mom, is this really necessary?' She said, 'Honey, I just want you to understand the risks.''Yeah, thanks. Now I'm so traumatized I won't have sex until I'm a senior citizen.'She smiled. 'Great. I guess I've done my job then. Do you want a sandwich.”

“Sure, okay, I'll pick up some cat litter. Anything else?""Watch your back, G." Then she hung up.Hero paused in her sobbing to look at me quizzically. "Why does your mom want cat litter? You guys don't even have a cat.""She uses it for..." I searched my brain madly, but all I could come up with was "teaching.""She uses cat litter to teach English?"I nodded. "She's kind of unconventional in her methods."Hero frowned. "But how does she use it?"The girl was relentless when she fixated on something. "Um, when their papers are really bad, she gives them a little bag of cat litter. It's her way of telling them their writing is crap." I laughed. "She's kooky.”

“I hope the people I hurt can see past the prank to the very real respect and affection I feel for them. If not, I may have to take my own advice, buy myself some cute shoes and march on. I hope that's not how it ends, though. I hope this boy-meets-girl-pretending-to-be-boy story has a happy ending, one with less bitter and more sweet.”

“He's an intricate, mesmerizing puzzle; I only succeeded at putting the pieces together because for once in my life I observed. I stopped talking long enough to listen - really listen - not just to what's said, but also to everything that goes unspoken.”

“I actually plan to mess up my life and start over every seven years. That way, I’ll never get in a rut. I read somewhere that most of your cells only live about seven years anyway, so in theory you literally are a new person; I figure that’s the best time to start over.”