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Could the two people who are making out please be quiet?" the Colonel asked loudly from his sleeping bag. "Those of us who are not making out are drun...more

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Inside the building, the sun lights up segments of the rotting wooden floor through the many holes in the roof. As I look for her, I register things: ...more

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Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she becam...more

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A poem can't do its work if you only read snippets of it.

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I feel like I might start crying and that I'm going to cry pee.

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We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters.

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At some point, you just pull off the band aid and it hurts. But when it is over, you are relieved.

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It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing attainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regul...more

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I think the future deserves our faith. But it is hard to argue with Emily Dickinson.

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The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a s...more

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Most of my friends were in band, and most of my free time during school was spent within twenty feet of the band room

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...there are books...which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.

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The marks we leave are too often scars.

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But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel...it's ridiculous. ...more

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Love"I'm in love with you," he said quietly."Augustus,"I said."I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling...more