Secrets aren’t the same as lying,′ Vaughn commented, because they both had the muddiest of ethics, which was an odd thing to have in common.

Ari had discovered a contraband Barbie bangle in her weekend case and had gone on an hour’s rant that contained words like ‘body fascism’ and ‘third-wave feminism’, then made Ellie write out fifty times, ‘Barbie is a toxic plastic tool of a patriarchal culture.

Happiness really isn’t that hard to find.

And being alone and being lonely were two different things but they felt exactly the same: they felt horrible.

People were so scared of telling the truth because the truth was chaotic and complicated and decidedly uncool, but uncool was the way I rolled. Or it would be if I used tired old phrases like ‘That’s the way I roll’, which I so don’t.

I always thought I hated the bastard, but knowing that I’m never going to get the chance to tell him how much I hated him breaks my heart.

Sometimes it frightens me how much I enjoy behaving like a complete cow.

I just couldn’t understand how you could go from being alive, from having molecules and blood cells constantly shifting around inside you, and thought processes and a mind full of memories and dreams and love and hate, and in just one tiny second these miraculous things stop and you’re dead. How could all that disappear? What happened to your soul, your essence, your wonder? Just because a muscle stops beating? It made absolutely no sense.

Dorkdom isn’t something you can choose. It’s something you are. But instead of dividing the world up into dorkside and darkside, I’ve realised that we all have a little bit of dork inside us.

Because, when everything else is gone, all we’re left with is our imaginations.