There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.
Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone’s bad qualities because they somehow complete you.
You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It’s not overrated. There’s a reason for all those songs.
I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.
The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote
Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on.
If you didn’t love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.
I realized how truly hard it was, really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not only is it scary, it throws your balance off as well.
I mean, it’s not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It’s, like, part of you for good.
Love is so unpredictable. That’s what makes it so great.
The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.
You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It’s always been yes when it comes to you.
You want to take me to a movie?” I asked. “Well, not really,” he said. “What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.
You know, when it works, love is amazing. It’s not overrated.
That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it’s reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.
It’s all in the view. That’s what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count.
You can’t just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can’t plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.
I don’t get it,’ Caroline said, bemused. ‘She’s the only one with wings. Why is that?’There were so many questions in life. You couldn’t ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.It’s so she can fly,’ I said. Then I started to run.
But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you’d get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you’ll never really enjoy it when things go right.
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren’t what people wanted to hear.
The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.
I knew that in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late again. I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
It’s not always easy being her daughter.’ I think,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard no matter whose daughter you are.
But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn’t for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.
Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.
The thing is, you can’t always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.
Life shouldn’t be about the either/or. We’re capable of more than that, you know?
I didnt pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn’t about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.
You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.
Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong.
The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it’s not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.
The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.
Rogerson,” I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, “where would I find the pelagic zone?””In the open sea,” he said. “Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.
When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.
Your mother won a special reward,” she told me, “because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.
Failing sucks. But it’s better than the alternative.””Which is?””Not even trying.” Now he did look at me, straight on. “Life’s short, you know?
Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”Wes: “How do you win?” he askedMacy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.
The best gifts come from the heart, not the store.
But as long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.
That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.
I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.
Fine,” he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn’t really care to know the truth.
Oh darling, don’t be bitter. It’s the first instinct of the weak.
But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”“You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.
You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it’ll happen.
You said the other day life was long,’ I shot back. ‘Which is it?’ ‘It’s both,’ she said, shrugging. ‘It all depends on how you choose to live it. It’s like forever, always changing.’Kristy and Macy; p.135
You get what you give, but also what you’re willing to take.
But it’s important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.
If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.
Yeah. I mean, acknowledging is easy. Something happened or it didn’t. But understanding… that’s where things get sticky.
I felt tears prick my eyes as I looked down at the model again, looking at that girl and boy on the curb. Forever in that place, together.
It all counts,’ Adam said again. ‘And the bottom line is, what defines you isn’t how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it’s one more, you’re all good.-pg 325 Along for the Ride
I don’t think anybody ever really knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “We’re all just out here hoping for the best.
All I’d ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.
Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside
You couldn’t just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn’t like a light switch, easy to turn on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out.
Oh for God’s sake,’ Heather said, ‘I wish you two would just go out, fail miserably as a couple, and get it over with.
Don’t be a fool. Don’t give up something important to hold onto someone who can’t even say they love you.
I didn’t want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, … and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn’t giving him.
Nah,” I said. “But if it does, just tell him I said to get back on the bike.””What?””He’ll understand.
There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you’d better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you’ll never understand what it’s saying.
Shit,” Delia said. “I mean, shoot. No, actually, I mean shit. I really do.
Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.
Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.
Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.-Maggie
You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.
Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never really learning a single thing.
So you should remember that, when you’re thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it’s not so bad.
It’s okay to accept things from people. It doesn’t make you weak or helpless.
As I rolled over, stretching out, my only thought was to go back to the dream I’d been having, which I couldn’t remember, other than that it had been good, in that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.
It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.
To me she said, “It’s this stupid gotcha thing, they’ve been doing it for weeks now. Leaping out at each other and us, scaring the hell out of everyone.””It’s a game of wits,” Bert said to me.”Half-wits,” Kristy added.
Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.
But wasn’t that always the way. It’s never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you’re busy focusing on the big picture.
I would miss Colby, but it wasn’t going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.
I’m not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.
There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to keep looking back.
Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak.
Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.
Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.
Family isnt about blood relationships, its about the meaning behind them. I relize now that sharing chromosoms is not the only way to having a family, its about the friendship behind it.
The point,’ Ms. Conyers continued, “is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.
It’s funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you’d think.
What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.
We were there, together, and in the next room I could hear that monitor beeping. Keeping track of another heart’s beat and giving enduring, solid proof of our own.
It was amazing how you could get so far from where you’d planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.
That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.
It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.
…You can’t unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.
Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.
When’s something difficult to come by, you’ll do that much more to make sure it’s even harder- if not impossible- to lose.
Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.
Grieving doesn’t make you imperfect. It makes you human.
Hey, and for what it’s worth? Friends don’t leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who come and take you out.
So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood how I felt. Now, though, I sometimes wished for more.
He wasn’t what I’d thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn’t what I’d thought I was, either.
I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I’d practically invented.
All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she’d left behind.
Why should I even bother? What’s the point, really?”He thought for a moment. “Who says there has to be a point?” he asked. “Or a reason. Maybe it’s just something you have to do.
for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.
Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.
What defines you isn’t how many times you crash but the number of times you get back.
The important thing to remember, … is that you are a human being and worthy of respect.
I’d been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.
There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past.
What was it like to be so confident even in your failings that you weren’t the least bit bothered when other people pointed them out? I was almost envious.
Life is full of screwups. You’re supposed to fail sometimes. It’s a required part of the human existance.
Life is full of screwups,” he said, chucking another paper at the split-level before taking the corner. “You’re supposed to fail sometimes. It’s a required part of the human existence.
I wasn’t ready to think about the other yet: that it wasn’t that I wasn’t right for Macon, but that maybe he wasn’t right for me. There was a difference. Even for someone who things didn’t come easy for, someone like me.
You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.
You get used to people being a certain way; you depend on it. And when they surprise you, for better or worse, it can shake you to your core.
Isn’t that the way everything begins? A night, a love, a once and for all.
Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can’t fully understand.
I knew from experience that no matter how much you turn things in your head, trying to make sense of them, some people just defy all logic.
Like I, of all people, didn’t know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they’d be able to find their way back to it.
Someone who normally moved so slowly, this time, for once, was long gone.
I would have thought this would make me feel better.. getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn’t. Not at all.
The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well.
… Everything he feels, he feels strongly. Too strongly, sometimes. I think he freaks people out.
But I knew what it said. That I could be imperfect, but only so much. Human, but only within limits. And honest, to her or to myself, never.
But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.
I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I’d ever known.
You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can’t fake, no matter how hard you try
What you do in your dreams is never your choice. But it made me happy anyway.
I’d made my choice, though, and I couldn’t take it back.
Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It’s a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.
He had a nice smile. Seeing it, I felt like I’d won a prize, because he was so sparing with them.
If he’d been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.
These were always the weirdest trips for me, when it was midnight or even later, and we pulled up to a dark house, trying to be quiet. Like a robbery in reverse, creeping around to leave something rather than take it.
Good be- gets bad, something lost leads to found…
funny how a beautiful song could tell such a sad story
That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.
Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek to the street, and waited. What for, I didn’t know. To be rescued. Or found. But no one came. All I’d ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.
All I’d ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.
Not everything’s perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It’s when you feel it all the time and can’t do anything about it… that’s when you get into trouble
School was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives.
Earlier in the summer, I’d found the syllabi to a couple of the courses I was taking at Defriese in the fall, and I’d hunted down a few of the texts at the U bookstore, figuring it couldn’t hurt to acquaint myself with the material.
It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering.
It’s hard to do,” I said. Wes looked at me. “What is?” I swallowed, not sure why I’d said this out loud. “Get it right.
Love is so unpredictable. Sometimes you’ll know a man for years and then one day, boom! Suddenly you see him in a different way. And other times, it’s that first date, that first moment. That’s what makes it so great.
You think it’s all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, it’s all in who is doing the looking.
After the group vet appointment–during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room–we went back to Sabrina’s and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.
Isn’t it weird the way you remember things, when someone’s gone?
It was just a tiny moment. Not a kiss, not even real contact. But for all the things it wasn’t, it meant so much.
It wasn’t about being happy or unhappy. I just didn’t want to be me anymore.
You stop believing in wishes when the only one you want to make can never come true.
She was dressing for the life she wanted, not the one she had.
It was like discovering that some part of you wasn’t yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn’t claim.
She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.
When you don’t know where you’re going, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have more than you need.
Together, we looked down at the tiny house, the sole thing on this vast, flat surface. Like the only person living on the moon. It could be either lonely or peaceful, depending on how you looked at it. “It’s a start,” I said.
There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifting from where you’ve carefully placed them, it shakes your faith, right where you stand.
Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn’t so much once you passed a certain hour.
If you have just one person believe in you, you’ll always find your way
Why don’t you ever wait a second and see what I’m planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.
Timing clicking together, finally, pieces falling into place.
the truth about forever is that it is happening right now
If this was my forever, I didn’t want to spend another second of it here.
I mean, it’s impossible to fake anything if you’ve already seen the other person in a way they’d never choose for you to. You can’t go back from that.
All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.
If June was the beginning of a hopeful summer, and July the juice middle, August was suddenly feeling like the bitter end.
There’s just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.
I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it’s perfect… As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.
That’s the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are
With love like that, you can’t get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is that it’s there. Better late than never.
I was such a smart kid, I should have figured out that the only way to really get my parents’ attention was to disappoint them or fail. But by the time I finally realized that, succeeding was already a habit too ingrained to break.
Once you love something, you always love it in someway. You have to. it’s like, part of you for good.
It’s hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.
I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.
I planned my whole future around Adam,’ she said now, quietly. ‘And now I have nothing.”No,’ I told her, ‘now you just don’t have Adam. There’s a big difference, Lissa. You just can’t see it yet.
But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything, if only because I had no idea how to respond to such an overture. If my experience with friends was sparse, what I knew about boys- other than a competitors for grades or class rank- was nonexistent
Isn’t it weird? The way you remember things when it’s gone.
I love writing about the summer between high school and college. It’s the last gasp of really being a teen.