“the most important things can't be lassoed with language. The most important things can only be felt.”

“I'm still shy," I admit, pulling the sleeves over my hands, "and I might always be, I don't know, but I think you can be shy and still feel okay about yourself at the same time.”

“Do not define me by my gender or my socio-economic status, Noah Willis. Do not tell me who I am and do not tell me who society thinks I am and then put me in that box and expect me to stay there. Because, I swear to God, I will climb the hell out of that box and I will take that box you've just put me in and I will use that box to smash your face in until you're nothing more than a freckly, bloodied pulp. You got that, sweet cheeks?”

“the most important things can't be lassoed with language. The most important things can only be felt.”

“love, real love, comes with three conditions - respect, kindness and trust. It isn't, and should never be, unconditional.”

“Because you don't get to choose your parents, K, and at some point you realise that maybe your parents just aren't able to parent very well, but we exist, and the only choice we've got in the whole situation is whether we're gonna love them anyway. It's as simple and messy and complicated as that”

“Because you don't get to choose your parents, , and at some point you realise that maybe your parents just aren't able to parent very well, but we exist, and the only choice we've got in the whole situation is whether we're gonna love them anyway. It's as simple and messy and complicated as that”

“In my 14 years of existence, I've never had a girl write nice things about me. I want to cry, and I think of that night with my mother, at the school social and how nice she and Noah were, and how kindness punches you in the heart more than meanness ever can. It's the most powerful weapon there is. And I wonder why people don't use it more often.”