Quotes from Wendelin Van Draanen

You don't have to be an immediate expert at everything, Juli. The idea here is to learn something new.

The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped. Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic. It's his eyes. Something in his eyes. They're blue, and framed in the blackness of his lashes, they're dazzling. Absolutely breathtaking.

painting is more than the sum of its parts," he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic. I

Rechazaban la oferta de sentir magia por el pequeño miedo de ensuciarse?

Don't sum up a person based on what you see, or what you don't understand; get to know them.

It's disturbing how fast weeds take root in my garden of worthiness. They're so hard to pull. And grow back so easily.

No se puede pensar en lo que podría haber sido, Bryce—entonces, como si pudiera leer mi mente, añadió—: Y no es justo condenarlo por algo que no ha hecho.

One by one by one by one. That's how I got through losing a leg. Minute by minute by minute by minute. Hour by hour by hour by hour. Day by day by day by day.

Man, talk about having a skeleton in the closet—this

I wipe away my tears and nod, because the pain in my leg is nothing compared to the one in my heart.

am a runner. That's what I do. That's who I am. Running is all I know, or want, or care about.

All those lateral G's. Vertical G's!

Ser sostenida por sobre la tierra y barrida por el viento, dijo, es como si tú corazón fuera besado por la belleza. — Juli Baker

Not that I'd ever want to own a 1960 sienna-rose Cadillac, but Hudson loves it, and I've got to admit—it glistens.

But I wasn't mad or happy. And as I lay in bed trying to read, I realized that upset had been overshadowed by uneasy. I felt as though someone was watching me. I got so spooked I even got up to check out the window and in the closet and under the bed, but the feeling still didn't go away. It took me nearly until midnight to understand what it was. It was me. Watching me.

Then there was Bryce - the most disturbing of all because I had to admit that I didn't really know him, either. And based on what I'd discovered lately, I didn't care to know anymore. Looking across the table at him, all I got was a strange, detached, neutral feeling. No fireworks, no leftover anger or resurging flutters. Nothing.

And as I nestled in and drifted off to sleep, my heart felt wonderfully... free.

Al igual que, de repente, yo no encajaba en ninguna parte. Ni en la escuela, ni en la casa... y cada vez que me daba vuelta, otra persona que había conocido desde siempre se sentía como un extraño para mí. Incluso, me sentí como un extraño.

No hay nada como una mujer de cabeza fuerte para hacerte feliz de estar vivo.

I had trouble climbing little trees and monkey bars. A roof1.

CHAPTER 12 Mom and Dad Boot Up

learned what sweating bullets means.

But every once you will find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.

In some ways it feels like forever ago. There's that ebb and flow in my mind about other things, too. Where it feels close, then far away. The Benders, the train, the bus, Louise, the library, my mother...waves of memories that wash in, then out. Close, then far. Fear's like that, too.