Simon feared that marriage licensing could be suspended without warning, and that cops, lawyers, homophobic protesters might show up to spoil everyth… - Gabrielle Zevin

What's Torschlusspanik?" Sam said. "It means 'gate-shut panic,'" Simon said. "It's the fear that time is running out and that you're going to miss an opportunity. Literally, the gate is closing, and you'll never get in.

The rub of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories is that if you don't make a few bad choices, the story will be terribly boring. If you do everything right and you're always good, the story will be very short.

It's so funny you should say this, because if you were one of my students, you'd be wearing your pain like a badge of honor. This generation doesn't hide anything from anyone. My class talks a lot about their traumas. And how their traumas inform their games. They, honest to God, think their traumas are the most interesting thing about them. I sound like I'm making fun, and I am a little, but I don't mean to be. They're so different from us, really. Their standards are higher; they call bullshit on so much of the sexism and racism that I, at least, just lived with. But that's also made them kind of, well, humorless. I hate people who talk about generational differences like it's an actual thing, and here I am, doing it. It doesn't make sense. How alike were you to anyone we grew up with, you know?

And then, despite the fact that A. J. does not believe in God, he closes his eyes and thanks whomever, the higher power, with all his porcupine heart.