“To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything. I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mea way. In a curious way. it's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that da, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report on top of that. or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why. Especially since I know that if they went to another school, the person who had their heart broken would have had their heart broken by somebody else, so why does it have to be so personal? And if I went to another school, I would never have known Sam or Patrick or Mary Elizabeth or anyone except my family. (Pg 142)”

“I just want you to know that you’re very special… and the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has.”

“It's nice to have things to look forward to.”

“If you are in a movie theater, you can look two people down and they are laughing while you are laughing or you can look three people down and they love that song that you love. It is living proof that you are not alone.”

“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.”

“And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad... Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.”

“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?”

“I just reminded myself that she didn't say it mean. She wasn't making fun of me. She wasn't comparing. Or criticizing.”

“I know I should have been grateful because it was a very nice thing to do. But I wasn't grateful. I wasn't grateful at all. Don't get me wrong. I acted like I was. But I wasn't. To tell you the truth, I was starting to get mad.”

“I don´t want to be somebody´s crush, if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what they think I am.”

“I feel great! I really mean it. I have to remember this for the next time I’m having a terrible week. Have you ever done that? You feel really bad, and then it goes away, and you don’t know why. I try to remind myself when I feel great like this that there will be another terrible week coming someday, so I should store up as many great details as I can, so during the next terrible week, I can remember those details and believe that I’ll feel great again. It doesn’t work a lot, but I think it’s very important to try.”