"If you care about somebody, you should want them to be happy. Even if you wind up being left out."

"That nice feeling when you look in the mirror, and your hair's right for the first time in your life? I don;t think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is."

"Dear Friend, I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a couple of weeks, but I have been trying to 'participate' like Bill said."

"I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees her is better than she actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera."

"I asked Patrick if he felt sad that he had to keep it a secret, and Patrick just said that he wasn't sad because at least now, Brad doesn't have to get drunk or stoned to make love."

"Incidentally, I only have one cavity, and as much as my dentist asks me to, I just can't bring myself to floss."

"Things get worse before they get better, but this is a worse that feels too big."

"I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everyone was, especially me."

"What's the point of using words nobody knows or can say comfortably?"

"I was just trying to be a friend,' I said. 'But you weren't, Charlie. At those times, you weren't being his friend at all. Because you weren't honest with him."

"Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight."

"If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am."

"Everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other."

"I feel infinite."

"Well, I think that part of being young is not exactly knowing why you do some of the things that you do. And it's by exploring your life or experimenting or making mistakes and learning from them hopefully that you start to forge an identity."

"And she says she wants to expose me to all these great things. And to tell you the truth, I don't really want to be exposed to all these great things if it means that I'll have to hear Mary Elizabeth talk about all the great things she exposed me to all the time. I don't understand that. I would give someone a record so they could love the record, not so they would always know that I gave it to them."

"I don't remember where we were walking to or where we were walking from. I don't even remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere."

"It's nice to have things to look forward to."

"It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another book."

"Things change and friends leave and life doesn't stop for anybody."

"Things change, friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody."

"I was in my bed trying to figure out why sometimes you can wake up and go back to sleep and other times you can't."

"Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend."

"Math has never made any sense to me."

"Then the movie started. It was in a foreign language and had subtitles, which was fun because I had never read a movie before."

"It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."

"I thought if I didnt take a break, I would do something even worse. Like yell or hang up the phone."

"It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody."

"I just kind of put my feelings away somewhere after that."

"What about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms?"

"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try and feel okay about them."

"Sam looked at me soft. And she hugged me. And I closed my eyes because I wanted to know nothing but her arms."

"I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That's why I'm trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning."

"I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist."

"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."

"On Friday night, I was reading my new book, but my brain got tired, so I decided to watch some television instead."

"I would die for you. But I won't live for you."

"My Aunt Helen was my favorite person in the whole world. She was my mom's sister. She got straight A's when she was a teenager and she used to give me books to read. My father said that the books were a little too old for me, but I liked them so he just shrugged and let me read."

"But in that moment when my brother took the field, all that washed away, and everyone was proud... I looked up at my dad, and he was smiling. I looked at my mom, and she was smiling even though she was nervous about my brother getting hurt, which was strange because it was a VCR tape of an old game, and she knew he didn't get hurt."

"Little kids talk about the strangest things. They really do."

"Maybe he didn't really encourage me to do things, but he didn't prevent me from doing them either. But after a while, I didn't do things because I didn't want him to think different about me. But the thing is, I wasn't being honest. So, why would I care whether or not he loved me when he didn't really even know me?"

"And things were back to normal except we were just friends."

"There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons."

"I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying."

"And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person."

"The family watched It's a Wonderful Life, which is a very beautiful movie and all I could think was why didn't they make a movie about uncle Billy?...Because he was a drunk and fat and lost all that money in the first place. I wanted an angel to come down and show us how uncle Billy's life had meaning."

"You know I blamed Craig for not letting me do things? You know how stupid I feel about that now? Maybe he didn't really encourage me to do things, but he didn't prevent me from doing them either. But after a while, I didn't do things because I didn't want him to think different about me. But the things is, I wasn't being honest. So, why would I care whether or not he loved me when he didn't really even know me?"

"It's strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal."

"Do you enjoy holidays with your family? I don't mean your mom and dad family, but your uncle and aunt and cousin family? Personally, I do. There are several reasons for this. First, I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other. Second, the fights are always the same."