Wendelin Van Draanen

"It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice. But the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late."

"The room fell quiet. And as I read down the list of over one hundred and fifty eight-grade boys, I realized that to me, there had only ever been one boy."

"I told about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. “It's that way with people, too,” he said, “only with people it's sometimes that the whole is less than the sum of the parts."

"My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floatin…"

"...something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living."

"“There's nothing like a head-strong woman to make you happy to be alive."

"“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss….” He turned to me. “But every once in a while you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare."

"What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn't be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a …"