To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.

I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.

Smiling is confusing, she thought. This is why I don’t do it.

Months are different in college, especially freshman year. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months—they're like dog months.

I don't want to do anything. I don't even want to start this day because then I'll just be expected to finish it.

Emergency dance party--go away.

I don't like hello. It makes me sound like I have dementia, like I've never heard a phone ring before and I don't know what's supposed to happen next. Hello?

You flirt with everything." She could tell that her eyes were popping-- her eyeballs actually felt cold around the edges. "You flirt with old people and babies and everybody in between.

She was tired of being the one who cried.

Levi was smiling. He kicked her chair again.

They want you to do things their way, they want you to follow their course and join their game and if you will ever fail you will be the only one to blame. Ridiculous

I was investing more and more of myself into an outcome I couldn’t predict and would very likely be disappointed by. But for me there was no other option.

Given so much, What have I done to Deserve it? Nothing, Absolutely nothing. No wonder my heart Dances.

You've probably noticed already that I'm dressed like a grown-up... I apologize to the Academy, and I promise that I will never do it again.

One of the reasons I write about religion is due to my own envy of people who truly feel the presence of god in their lives, good souls who believe devoutly in a supreme being and an afterlife.

Your mind is a powerful thing. When you filter it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change.

A tree is a thought, an obstruction stopping the flow of wind and light, trapping water, housing insects, birds, and animals, and breathing in and out. How treelike the human, how human the tree.

When you're fast when you're shooting, there are great things that you discover. By being fast you also sometimes get more time to experiment.

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it's digging deep, it's doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.