"If someone's walking in the hills and discovers a seam of gold, I think if they walk away without digging it, they're just stupid. When something that lucky happens to you, thinking it's unfair for you to strike it rich all by yourself doesn't mean you're selfless. When great happiness unexpectedly swoops down on people, they suddenly turn into cowards. Snatching happiness takes a lot more courage than enduring unhappiness. When you find something precious, you have to hold on to it with all your might and never let it go, whatever else you may lose. After all, there are lots of people who die witout ever finding something that's really precious to them. So don't blow your big chance."

When I finished speaking, I turned my back on my mother and started walking away. What a classy thing for a first-grader to say, and to her own mother at that! I turned over the words of my speech in my head as I slowly made my way home, thinking I was pretty hot stuff. That last "don't blow your big chance" was really good, the way it sounded like a killer phrase from a movie or something. Having a cool one-liner at the end made the preachy part before it really come alive. But delivering it with my backpack on was kinda lame---maybe took the impact out of it?... ~pg.27 Kamikaze Girls, by Novala Takemoto