. . . my bones they'll burn or bury. It'll be my death.

I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he'd look at me the way boys do in films, as if I'm beautiful.

I want to die in my own way. It's my illness, my death, my choice. This is what saying yes means.

It was strange how words meant something when they came out of your mouth. Inside your head they were safe and silent, but once they were outside, people grabbed hold of them.

Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.

Then she says, ‘I love you.’ Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.

We make patterns, we share moments.

All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.

I love you. I love you. I send this message through my fingers and into his, up his arm and into his heart. Hear me. I love you. And I'm sorry to leave you.

It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.' 'Why are you saying that?' 'She might need permission to die, Cal.' 'I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.

Bye, Tess. haunt me if you like. I don't mind.

Fear had a tendency to drive away the courtesy of civilization.

Your age is measured by your dreams not by the years.

True sorrow is as rare as true love.

Documentation is a love letter that you write to your future self.

It is a moral issue how we are going to treat workers. On these issues, these are moral issues, principled issues, where there aren't compromises.

Men. One minute they have their tongues down your throat and the next they're forbidding you from meeting your own father and criticizing your fashion choices.

But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?

I used to teach writing in a federal prison, and for my students' benefit, I would liken the narrative use of this highly personal point of view to a boxer's getting in close to his opponent.

I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky.

The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor.