“I know a few things about normal kids. Hell, I could write a book about them.”

“I watch some kids ask the cafeteria ladies to sign their books. What do they write: "Hope your chicken patties never bleed?" Or, maybe, "May your Jell-O always wiggle?”

“Write about the emotions you fear the most.”

“I am Outcast.""The kids behind me laugh so loud I know they’re laughing about me. I can’t help myself. I turn around. It’s Rachel, surrounded by a bunch of kids wearing clothes that most definitely did not come from the EastSide Mall. Rachel Bruin, my ex-best friend. She stares at something above my left ear. Words climb up my throat. This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood about my parents, who didn’t make fun of my bedroom. If there is anyone in the entire galaxy I am dying to tell what really happened, it’s Rachel. My throat burns.""Her eyes meet mine for a second. “I hate you,” she mouths silently.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I’ll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I’ll think about a career path.”

“Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them”

“I am not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it’s over, and I’m not going to think about it.”