Beneath the water, I can know her. She was fierce, uncompromising. When she loved, she loved deeply, passionately. She loved the blue-eyed water god. She owned him. His heart.But then she felt betrayal, she hated, and she was feared.Hate gave her power.

Friendship is love as much as any romance. And like any love, it’s difficult and treacherous and confusing. But in the moment when your knees touch, there’s nothing else you could ever want.

I deciced if I were ever to get into booze and women, my line would be, ‘Excuse me, madam, but I would really love to bed and muss you. . . . Are you perchance free this evening?

Goodwill to all.’ I know it’s techinically ‘goodwill to all men,’ but in my mind, I drop the ‘men’ because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist. Goodwill shouldn’t be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I’d even extend the goodwill not...

I mean, like most guys, you carry around this girl in your head, who is exactly who you want her to be. The person you think you will love the most. And every girl you are with gets measured against this girl in your head.

These humans—they are cruel monsters. Liars. Deceitful. For the first time, I want to hurt them the way they hurt me. This is so unfair. My body feels numb, my energy spent, my mind deceived and angry.

I know she is scared of this simple task even if the fear is something she can’t—or won’t— acknowledge. Fear, perhaps, is not based on the chemical component of adrenaline alone. It acts also on inexperience, or venturing into the unknown, even if that unknown is as uncomplicated a thing as a swimming pool. At...

One part of Judaism called tikkum olam. It says that the world has been broken into pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job – everyone’s job – is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole again … Maybe we’re the pieces. Maybe what we’re supposed to do...

I was coming down off the last painkiller left in my dresser drawer after Autumn tossed my stash. In that moment I was so groggy and happy I would have accepted a date with Oscar the Grouch – and planned to do some serious feeling up on the green furry beast too. Yeah, stooping to...

We’re better off. But I don’t know if the world’s better off. I don’t know if the two are the same thing.

It’s bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They’re not. They’re just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.

When the time is right, when these feelings of rage and unfairness once again overcome me, I will not faint. I will fight.

Beauty’s not only skin deep. Just because a person is beautifuldoesn’t mean there’s no soul beneath. Doesn’t meanthat person hasn’t suffered like everyone else, doesn’t meanthey don’t hope to still be a good human being in an awfulworld. (Gabriel)

What do you want ?”It was a hard question, especially if I had to bat en down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas.

I’m liking that I can throw any kind of sentence at her without worrying it’s too out there.

I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.

We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments....

I am bigger than the box I’m in.

‘Freedom.’ He pauses a moment to reflect on the F-word. ‘Sometimes I think it’s an idea that enslaves us. We’re never free from hungering for the notion that we can even have freedom. When perhaps it’s the very idea of it that causes us to suffer.

You should never wish for wishful thinking.

Somewhere between a friend and acquaintance—a frequaintance, as it were.

Well sure, who doesn’t need a boyfriend? but realistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one.

It’s not the loving that hurts this girl; it’s the understanding of it for what it is, that it will never be returned in the same way, that threatens to destroy her. But to unload the words – “I love you” – on an innocent party who didn’t ask for it, to reach across the...

I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand....

There is no such thing as a soulmate…and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”Ely in Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

We always see the worst in our selves. Our most volnerable selves. We need someone to get close enough to tell us that we’re wrong. Someone we trust.

is not the time for being truthful.

Boy needs to get a good night’s sleep. Otherwise, he’ll be lucky to get accepted at SUNY-So Far Upstate You Might As Well Be In Canada, eh?

[S]he leans into this guy and rocks her head like I’m making this music for her, when if I could, I would take it all away and give her as much silence as she’s given me pain.

It’s hard to show you that I tried unless you end up succeeding.

Get out of bed and feed me already, person!

Cinderella was such a dork. She left behind her glass slipper at the ball and then went right back to her step-monster’s house. It seems to me she should have worn the glass slipper always, to make herself easier to find. I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in...

Maybe your unspeakable defects give you power too?

The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.-Norah, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist

What?”‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand....

Why do adults think every girl who isn’t some overachieving nitwit needs to be reassured about her intelligence? Folks, my self-esteem is just fine, thanks. I may not be school smart, and I may do extremely stupid things sometimes, but I know I’m smart. And I’d give me some serious Vegas odds to kick the...

All this hoping for nothing-or someone-that’s maybe hopeless

I’ve always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

Jede Nacht ist für mich ein Song. Jeder Augenblick ist für mich ein Song. Aber diesmal ist alles anders. Und gleichzeitig spüre ich, dass das Leben von uns nicht nur in einem einzigen Song gelebt wird. Wir leben von Lied zu Lied, von Augenblick zu Augenblick, von Akkord zu Akkord. Das Leben ist mehr als...

I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other, whenever and however...

She murmured, in that particular Nancy way of hers that grates most when my inner bitch is aching to be let loose, ‘Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.’My eyes popped open to see her lemon face standing over me.’SOMEONE,’ I hissed, ‘HASN’T EVEN WOKEN UP YET. GOD, WHAT IS...

He touched Santa!” a young child squealed.

I don’t know what boldness came over me, but the resolute heaviness of Dash’s demeanor threatened to crush my soul. My pinky finger crept over and nestled against his, for comfort. Like a magnet, his pinky finger latched onto and intertwined with mine. I like magnets a whole lot.

I don’t see why ogling same-sex kissing should be the exclusive domain of frat boys whacking off to lesbian action, that’s so sexist. Feminism should be all inclusive- it should be about sexual liberation, equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental girl right of boy2boy appreciation.

Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it’s like we’re in a dream where he’s Christopher Plummer and I’m Julie...

I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on

What’s a slut?” I ask him.”A girl who puts out too easily.””Puts out what?” I imagine Greer putting out dinner and don’t understand what Iwan wouldn’t like about that.”Puts out, you know…” His face, already beet red from our run, turns a darker scarlet. “Sex.”I wonder where Greer puts the sex out.

The humans create life, and senselessly cause death. For nothing.

The best is when we all go at once, like an army of interrelated popcorn zombies who laugh the same laughs and gasp the same gasps and aren’t so germ-phobic with each other that we won’t share a ginormous Coke with one straw. Family is useful like that.

The handwriting was a girl’s. I mean, you can tell. That enchanted cursive.