I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are.

We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

Life is about being optimistic and living life in despair is not the last resort of every problem

Strength does not come in those times when you hit the mark

On the bright side, I'm sure this isn't the last time you'll ever get firebombed, so maybe you'll have better luck next time.

. . . when you are stressed, if you take three deep breaths before you say or do anything, this will help prevent you from making choices you might regret later.

I don't actually watch that much TV, but I was obsessed with 'Dawson's Creek' growing up. And 'Freaks and Geeks.' And '8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.'

Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.

There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business.

The habit of going to your congressman's town hall and asking questions, that's powerful in a way that shouting slogans or getting arrested is not, that is completely counterproductive.

...living the gospel of Jesus Christ is the price of-and the only way to-peace.

Every pessimist who ever lived has been buried in an unmarked grave. Tomorrow has always been better than today, and it always will be.