bullying

Banning books is just another form of bullying. It's all about fear and an assumption of power. The key is to address the fear and deny the power.

When people see you're happy doing what you're doing, it sort of takes the power away from them to tease you about it.

Just as we have created a society in which it would be unthinkable to light up a cigarette in the Kennedy Center lobby, we can create a society where it is unthinkable that a child suffers abuse, fails in school, becomes delinquent, or faces teasing and bullying. We could have a society in which diverse people and organizations work together to ensure that families, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods are nurturing and that our capitalistic system functions to benefit everyone.

Never write a book and let it sit on a shelf.

My hair is not the shiniest of bobsMy eyes are not the brightest in the roomMy figure will not get me modeling jobsMy smile will not bring young boys to their doom.But do I cry and mourn my average face?Or wish that I had boyfriends at the ready?Do I not sleep because I lose the race,Or spurn my food because I don't go steady?My mind is on a more important thingThat lifts my heart and makes my spirit soarI want to make the souls of people singAnd quiet down the mean and bullying roar.To help the wounded girls replace the scarWith the right to be exactly who they are.

I__ proud of you, son,_ he said. __ guess it has finally sunk in that it__ important to stand up for yourself in this world.__ocky shook his head. __t__ more important to stand up for someone who can__ stand up for herself,_ he had answered.Rocky Ryan speaking with his father.

My mother says we__e supposed to make mistakes. That__ the way we learn._ Rocky Ryan in Bully At Ambush Corner.

Life is a chain of choices. Making the correct one is never easy.___hat__ for sure,_ agreed Rocky.__ut if we didn__ make difficult choices, right or wrong,_ said Mr. Veraldi, __e wouldn__ learn anything worth knowing." Rocky Ryan and his viola teacher, Mr. Veraldi, in Bully at Ambush Corner.

Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.

Apologies often cannot undo pain; but they can acknowledge it. And part of the cruelty of bullying is that the bruises it leaves are on the inside__t__ a hidden form of violence, shrouded by shame.

Asshole Proximity Disorder

It's a date.""It's a cookie.""It's a cookie date.

History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.

Milkshakes make the world seem less shitty.

Bonding over illegal drugs hadn't magically solved our problems,

The tallest slugger touched my forehead, and I ignited like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Shards of dazzling light rippled under my skin. I was the constellation Grus. The Trifid Nebula. I was the Big Bang, expanding endlessly through time and space forever."I thought I was dying. That I was going to expire on a cold slab, trapped inside an UFO, my body filled with every light that had ever existed. I couldn't imagine a better way to die.

Just the perfect peace of nothingness. That's what I believed.

Depression is like being under house arrest, only there is no house.