“Sometimes I wanted to peel away all of my skin and find a different me underneath.”

“Writing is very cathartic for me. As a teacher, I hear many students say that writing can be painful and exhausting. It can be, but ultimately I believe that if you push through, the process is healing and exhilarating.”

“Magic can be found in stolen moments.”

“Everyone whirled around her, entranced by the stories in which they recognized themselves, but in the stories they were also more than themselves and it always felt at the end fulfilled, not meaningless and empty like life can sometimes feel.”

“Stories are like genies...They can carry us into and though our sorrows. Sometimes they burn, sometimes they dance, sometimes they weep, sometimes they sing. Like genies, everyone has one. Like genies, sometimes we forget that we do.Our stories can set us free...When we set them free.”

“Sometimes I wanted to peel away all of my skin and find a different me underneath.”

“Lex surfed wicked, like the devil. He wasn’t afraid of anything, seemed like. He grinned at West as the waves came up toward them like towers of green glass, an emerald city. We’re off to see the wizard, he shouted. He whooped. His body crouched ready to fly. He shone against the sun.”

“Once she was standing by her locker and her puka shells broke and scattered and she made a joke about it but he could tell she was upset. He wanted to buy her some more. He wanted to give her a million strands of little nesting polished shells, and tropical flowers and ice creams and lemonades and a pale blue surfboard to teach her to surf on and anything else she wanted. Instead he let his checkered Vans step on one of the rolling shells and crush it.”

“People worry so much. Just enjoy your body. That you can love. And you're alive.”

“It was like when we were little kids and we played games on the ivy-covered hillside in the backyard. We were warriors and wizards and angels and high elves and that was our reality. If someone said, Isn’t it cute, look at them playing, we would have smiled back, humoring them, but it wasn’t playing. It was transformation. It was our own world. Our own rules.”

“But death is stronger than that and when you cover your eyes you are the one who can't see the dark. The dark still sees you.”