teenagers

I knew," he murmurs. I can hear him over the music only because he says it right in my ear. "Right after we talked in the mall, I knew.""Knew what?""That you were going to be the first girl to break my heart."My breath catches. I force the smile now. "I haven't broken anything yet, right?""You will. Someday. But everybody breaks everything. For now we're fantastic. It's just, the better we get, the harder I realize the fall will be.

When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

I hated high school. I don__ trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there__ something wrong with you.

...real teenage boys aren't like characters in the books you read. They smell funny and are obsessed with video games and say dumb things. They're still learning, just like you.

So how did you get this job, anyway?' I asked.'My science teacher.''Why'd he pick you?''For my brains and good looks, obviously.''Yeah, right. My social studies teacher picked me, but I can't really figure out why."'For your brains and good looks, obviously.''Um, thanks.' Had Aaron just complimented me? Wow.

(...) I could "talk fast" -- that's to say, without hesitating, stammering -- most of the time -- but there were categories of words, sentiments, I could never say, they'd have stuck in my throat. The embarrassment of it even whispering-teasing to Legs for instance 'Yeah you're my heart too!' or 'I love you' or 'I would die for you', nobody ever talked that way, mostly there was just my mother and me and we hardly talked at all.

As a teenager, I didn__ want to be me; I wanted to be many different people. Maybe I realized that they all lived inside me and that if I managed to connect with them, they would become aspects of me.

What seems is not what is. Because, none knows what is left, when it is all right!

Yes, I was scared, vulnerable, and fragile and lived in books more than real life. Yet there was nothing Mom could do to make things easier for me, just worse by grounding me for life at the slightest hint of truth. Why? Because in spite of what she said she did not trust me or, to put it in her words, I did not know what was good for me.Being a teenager sucks! I might as well have been in prison.

I was hoping we could just listen to Jimmy Eat World and forget we ever grew up.

Women dress for women, if we dressed for me, we'd all be running around naked.

After all this time, I know exactly where I belong. Here. With Edmond. And that's how I live now.

Life is too short, you know? You have to make the best of it. Do things most teenagers wouldn__ do.

How embarrassing that she ever did something that silly. But, good God, she was seventeen. At that age, we're mostly high-pitched and crazy. All urgent chemicals raging around the blood course. And that's why we do dangerous and embarrassing things, as if simultaneously we're immortal and going to die tomorrow. And that's why we look back on that time so fondly from the dimmer years to come. Remembering the days when we were like Greek gods. Mighty and idiotic.

Sadly, American teenagers are to a weightless vacuum as seat cushions are to polyurethane foam -

Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief. I think she'll wake when she tires of it. A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.

(From the Q&A with the author at the end of the book.)Have any readers ever asked questions that shocked you?I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.The first dozen times I heard this, I was horrified. But I heard it over and over again. I realized that many young men are not being taught the impact that sexual assault has on a woman. They are inundated by sexual imagery in the media, and often come to the (incorrect) conclusion that having sex is not a big deal. This, no doubt, is why the number of sexual assaults is so high.I am also shocked by adults who feel that rape is an inappropriate topic to discuss with teenagers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 44 percent of rape victims are under the age of 18 and 46 percent of those victims are between the ages of 12-15. It makes adults uncomfortable to acknowledge this, but our inability to speak clearly and openly about sexual issues endangers our children. It is immoral not to discuss this with them.

The hard way is my favorite way to learn.