Catherine Ryan Hyde

“Grownups have a tendency to talk themselves out of things, saying it will never work, but kids are fabulously optimistic.”

“If you can't pay it back, pay it forward.”

“The world I live in is not all white people, not all straight people, and it's not all people who have their acts together, either.”

“I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.”

“I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words”

“And then, every time I didn't see her, there was a fall involved. I thought about dancing on the fifth-floor ledge outside out apartment. Every train she wasn't on felt something like hitting the pavement from five floors up. So maybe my father was right about that. Maybe happiness and excitement really are dangerous things.”