Adults tell students that it gets better, that the world changes after school, that being 'different' will pay off sometime after graduation. But no one explains to them why.

— Alexandra Robbins

A Health Affairs study comparing patient-satisfaction scores with HCA HPS surveys of almost 100,000 nurses showed that a better nurse work environment was associated with higher scores on every patient-satisfaction survey question.

— Alexandra Robbins

Although she was gregarious, she inadvertently separated herself from people because she was so often inside her own head, focusing on her creativity.

— Alexandra Robbins

Being an outsider doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of social failing. We do not view a tuba player as musically challenged if he cannot play the violin.

— Alexandra Robbins

Being indie means being artistic and finding your own eccentric identity. The name of the game for being an indie kid is to never admit you are one. If you do, it goes against your beliefs against labeling, thus making you a hypocrite.

— Alexandra Robbins

Gaming was "one of the few times when you only have to focus on one thing." But even more than that, "It's like an anchor. As long as I know it's there, it's part of me. It's some form of continuity that in my life I desperately need.

— Alexandra Robbins

Group membership can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience", meaning that they believed that other people are just as attuned to their appearance and behavior as they are.

— Alexandra Robbins

He didn't realize that simply by mingling among various lunch tables, he was befriending people in different crowds, weaving together the fringes of the cafeteria.

— Alexandra Robbins

How could he encapsulate in a pithy admissions-interview line all of his unique ideas and interests?

— Alexandra Robbins

I figure I'll win the fight in twenty years or so anyway when I end up with a decent life and their unemployed and living at home.

— Alexandra Robbins