It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.

I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don’t want to die.

Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care... -Wintergirls

We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.

So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.

They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs.

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.

Write about the emotions you fear the most.

I have tons of sunglasses. My husband won't let me buy another pair because I lose them all the time.

As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.

What makes a specific quality or quantity of innovation retain its intense newness over the years?

I think I have an obligation to be kind to people in general, otherwise I'll feel crappy about myself.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world.

Household objects lost meaning. A bedside clock became a hunk of molded plastic, telling something called time, in a world marking it's passage for some reason.

Probably I chose immortality because mortality is a universal human obsession.

In crowds we have unison, in groups harmony. We want the single voice but not the single note; that is the secret of the group.

The great way is not difficult if you don't cling to good or bad. Just let go of your preferences; and everything will become perfectly clear.