You know, when it works, love is amazing. It’s not overrated.

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...

*Forever was so many different things.It was always changing; it was what everything was really all about.It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last...

Nah,” I said. “But if it does, just tell him I said to get back on the bike.””What?””He’ll understand.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own....

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

Mmm-hmm,” Monica said aloud.

If you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed.

It’s not that I believe everything happens for a reason. It’s just that… I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It’s the universe’s way of providing contrast, you know?...

But you only get so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.

Don’t think or judge, just listen.

Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

So what’s your doll’s name?” Boo asked me.”Barbie,” I said. “All their names are Barbie.””I see,” she said. “Well, I’d think that would get boring, everyone having the samename.”I thought about this, then said, “Okay,...

What defines you isn’t how many times you crash but the number of times you get back.

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.

Restoring order of my personal universe suddenly seemed imperative, as I refolded my T-shirts, stuffed the toes of my shoes with tissue paper, and arranged all the bills in my secret stash box facing the...

He wasn’t the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in...

Maybe the truth was, it shouldn’t be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something’s difficult...

Oh darling, don’t be bitter. It’s the first instinct of the weak.

You know? Kind. Good. Like in all those love stories I’m such an expert on. It can’t just be fiction. It can’t. Those guys are out there, I know it. I just can’t find them.”...

Sometimes there isn’t a good guy or a bad guy. Sometimes even the ones you want to believe turn out to be liars.

Jennifer Anne had prepared some complicated-looking recipe involving chicken breasts stuffed with sweet potatoes topped with a vegetable glaze. They looked perfect, but it was the kind of dish where you just knew someone had...

Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground solid beneath us. But then something crossed his face, a thought, a hesitation, and...

It’s just that…I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It’s the universe’s way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It’s...

If this was my forever, I didn’t want to spend another second of it here.

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...

I’d heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under...

Forever was so many different things.It was always changing; it was what everything was really all about.It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last...

Maybe if I’d agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I’d always tell her, why can’t I do...

Well,’ she said, adjusting a pot lid, ‘I have my family of origin, which is you and Mom. And then Jaime’s family, my family of marriage. And hopefully, I’ll have another family, as well. Our...

−,Peor que los gritos?−Mucho peor −dijo, asintiendo con la cabeza−. Mira, en una discusión, al menos, sabes qué es lo que está pasando. O tienes una idea. El silencio es… Puede ser cualquier cosa. Es...

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She’d been through too much, between my siters-I...

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.

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.

If something doesn’t work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don’t just throw it away. Everything can’t be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give...

‘So you’re always honest,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you?’ ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I’m not.’ ‘Well, that’s good to know, I guess.’ ‘I’m not saying I’m a liar,’ I told him. He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s...

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.

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.

Just start somewhere,” Dr. Marshall had said to me as I ground a banana-pineapple one to bits between my teeth. “It doesn’t have to be at the beginning.” She’d pulled her legs up, Indian-style, letting...

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.

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,...

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...

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.

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.

It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it shouldn’t be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It’s the things you fight...

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.

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.

Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.

If he’d been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.

Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.