Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.

It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.

Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.

And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself.

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.

I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.

The possibility that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth - love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn't flowers grow out of dirt?

Affection is one of the most neglected words in the English language, that people throw the word love around like confetti when they mean affection.

He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.

I hate studying and I hate partying. But I'm okay with motocross. And muscles.Motocross and Muscles. Now that should be a Lifetime movie.

Politics is always driven by competing worries.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.

Being in love is dangerous because you talk yourself into thinking you've never had it so good.

Whatever else art is good for, its chief effectiveness lies in propagating more art.

The only way to learn is to keep doing something new, and, if you're lucky, learning with people who really know how to do it.

Existentialism is the kind of philosophy that makes for legendary children.

This may surprise you, but I was arrested in high school.

If you're not uncomfortable on a daily basis, you're not making much progress.

Everything in my life has been leading up to this," he whispered. "Everything that's happened, everything I've done has been worth it because it's brought me here.