Megan Jacobson

“I'm sitting in front of the TV, watching Jerry Springer, and it makes me think of how many mad people there are in the world, and whether everyone is mad deep down, they just pretend they're not, and it's the people in asylums or on Jerry Springer who are the honest ones. I have a notebook and a chewed-up pen, and I'm trying to think of a topic for the Youth Issues speech. Mrs Thomas says she thinks I have a lot to say, but I don't. Nothing I can put words to anyway. I could talk about bullying, or alcoholism, but I don't think I could speak about that out loud, it's too real, and it'd be like I was standing up there naked. More than naked. It would be like my skin was all peeled off and I was just standing there with my heart all bloody and thumping in my rib cage for everyone to see.”

“love, real love, comes with three conditions - respect, kindness and trust. It isn't, and should never be, unconditional.”

“the most important things can't be lassoed with language. The most important things can only be felt.”

“I'm still shy," I admit, pulling the sleeves over my hands, "and I might always be, I don't know, but I think you can be shy and still feel okay about yourself at the same time.”

“Do not define me by my gender or my socio-economic status, Noah Willis. Do not tell me who I am and do not tell me who society thinks I am and then put me in that box and expect me to stay there. Because, I swear to God, I will climb the hell out of that box and I will take that box you've just put me in and I will use that box to smash your face in until you're nothing more than a freckly, bloodied pulp. You got that, sweet cheeks?”

“In my 14 years of existence, I've never had a girl write nice things about me. I want to cry, and I think of that night with my mother, at the school social and how nice she and Noah were, and how kindness punches you in the heart more than meanness ever can. It's the most powerful weapon there is. And I wonder why people don't use it more often.”