“I was crushing on my mentor. Crushing on my older mentor. I had to be out of my mind. He was seven years older than me. Old enough to be my…well, okay, nothing. But still older than me. Seven years was a lot. He's been learning to write when I was born. When I'd been learning to write and throw books at my teachers, he's probably been kissing girls. Probably lots of girls, considering how he looked.”

“Look at my papa here; he's been dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand him.”

“Not to mention that he’s hotter than seven shades of hell and could probably make me forget my convictions when he kisses me.”

“According to the date on Van’s driver’s license, he was seventeen. Somehow he’d looked a lot older when he’d been trying to cut my head off.”

“Jules wants me to tell you that it's a shame you have to fall for someone as boring as myself. He wishes he could take my place and show you how well an older man can treat a lady." He talked back to the air. "Yeah, right, buddy. What are you, like twenty-seven years older than me? Well, at the moment we're both nineteen, so back off.”

“When I turn thirty, in thirty days or so, I might be feeling old, so I’ll probably call my grandma up, because as old as I’ll feel, she’ll be feeling older. Twelve years older.
”