“Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says.it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.”

“It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”

“I know some of you areThinking maybe I deserved it.But before you start pointingFringers, let me ask youIs what I did really so bad?So bad I deserved to die?So bad I deserved to die like that?Is what I did really much worseThen what anybody else does?Is it really so much worseThan what you do?”

“For the first time in my life I've done something for me and by choice and not because somebody told me it was good or bad.”

“. . . Liesl & Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic - not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying, And, of course, it is a way of finding a happy ending - even, or especially, when the happy ending is denied me in real life. Let it be an escape for its readers. For me, it is a way of not letting go.”

“Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drovepeople to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhhalso tells stories of those who died because of love lost ornever found, which is what terrifies me the most.The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both whenyou have it and when you don’t”

“That's when it happens. The moment of death is full of heat and sound and pain bigger than anything, a funnel of burning heat splitting me in two, something searing and scorching and tearing, and if screaming were a feeling it would be this.Then nothing. I know some of you are thinking maybe I deserved it. Maybe I shouldn't have sent that rose to Juliet or dumped my drink on her at the party. Maybe I shouldn't have copied off of Lauren Lornet's quiz. Maybe I shouldn't have said those things to Kent. There are probably some of you who think I deserved it because I was going to let Rob go all the way--because I wasn't going to save myself.But before you start pointing fingers, is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like THAT?Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?Is it really so much worse than what YOU do?Think about it.”