Quotes from Ned Vizzini

People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it

You have to be the prude or the slut, and if you pick one, other people hate you for it, and you can't trust anyone anymore, because they're all after the same thing, and you see that you can never go back to how it was before...

Well, there are lot of people who make a lot of money off the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever…all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying. They doubled their market!

People always come and go.

There's something about people who are the same age. It's like you got piped out in the same shipment. You've got to stick together.

I mean everybody's messed up." "What's your point?" "We wear our problems differently.

I don't really need to explain this to Aaron. He's been demoted

When we got together we would start projects: an alarm clock torn apart and distributed over a wall, a stop-motion video of Lego people having sex, a Web site for pictures of toilets.

We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.

The sweating is awful. It's not as bad as the not eating, but it's weird—cold sweat, all over my forehead, having to be wiped off every two minutes, smelling like skin concentrate. People notice. It's one of the few things people notice.

Jimmy may have only a few sentences in his repertoire, but he knows to keep going when pretty girls pay attention to him.

There's so much more for me to be doing. I should be a success and I'm not and other people—younger people— are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting paid and winning scholarships and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?

Is that the truth, Jimmy?" I ask without looking at him. "It's the truth, and it come to ya!" I smile.

We look into each other's eyes as we shake hands. His are full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.

I used to like the foods that come in abstract shapes: chicken nuggets, Fruit Roll-Ups, hot dogs.

Let's concentrate on our discussion of things that make us happy, Humble," says the psychologist.

And I know about psychologists, when they're writing down what you're saying they're really writing down how much money they're going to get when they sell their latest yacht, because they're all yuppies with no respect.…

Kid like you, got money, got a family, you'll be out in a few days.

her cheeks a slight Asian red;

I didn't go to sleep until four, but I was in some one else's house, so I woke up early—at eight—with that crazy sleeping-at-someone-else's-house energy.

You don't want any of your Anchors being members of the opposite sex you're attracted to," Dr. Minerva says. "Relationships change even more than people. It's like two people changing. It's exponentially more volatile. Especially two teenagers.

There are only things that could have turned out differently. You don't have any shoulds or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way.

I'm young, but I'm already screwing up my life. I'm smart but not enough - just smart enough to have problems.

See, because being Coll is obviously the most important thing on earth. It's more important than getting a job, or having a girlfriend, or political power, or money, because all those things are predicated by Coolness. They happen because of it. They depend on it.