“High school was so typical and predictable. Everyone here was so occupied with discovering the definition of cool. To some, cool was Abercrombie and popped collars. Some thought cool was playing sports. Some thought cool was drinking before the homecoming dance. And others swore that cool was not trying to be cool: nonconformists with black nail polish, leather boots, and oversized safety pins in their ears.Our free expression was in so many ways just a restriction of our identities. All of us trying to be something we weren't. Even the nonconformists were conforming. High school, I guessed, was just a chapter, something standing in the way of real freedom. High school didn't even seem real. It seemed so fake.”

“While 'Rap Trax!' recorded, Neel found some scrap paper and we started writing our first lyrics. Bandying about subject matter and title, we got stuck on the idea of 'cool', so my first rap song became 'Pretty Cool'. It was a symbol of our confidence. We weren't awesome cool or mega cool. We were only... pretty cool.”

“The longer I live, the more I'm convinced the world is just one big high school, with the cool kids always targeting the uncool.”

“Real people are actively trying to live like fake people, so real people are no less fake. Every comparison becomes impractical. This is why the impractical has become totally acceptable; impracticality almost seems cool.”

“Ooh, Snowberry, you were right,” one of them said, wrinkling her nose like she smelled something foul. “She does reek of a dead pig in the summer. I don’t know how Mab can stand it.”Clenching my fists, I tried to keep my cool. I was so not in the mood for this now.God, it’s like high school all over again. Will it never end? These are ancient faeries, for Pete’s sake, and they’re acting like my high school pom squad.”

“The fact was, by the time she got to high school, being weird and proud of it was an asset. Suddenly cool, Blue could've happily had any number of friends. And she had tried. But the problem with being weird was that everyone else was 'normal'".”