Sure, it sucked to be lost, but I’d long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in...

Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn’t make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you’re doing it out of fear.

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do...

We’d start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things....

Your mother won a special reward,” she told me, “because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.

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.

Finally he asks, “What if that’s not enough? What if I need something else?”And she replies, “Whatever you need, I will find a way to get it to you. I will give you the moon,...

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.

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...

He glanced over at me. ‘Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine for real or something?”No,’ I said.’Of what, then?’ he asked.I paused, only just now realizing that...

You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It’s not overrated. There’s a reason for all those songs.

After all, it’s all kinds of things that make up a life, right? The big, like falling in love and spending time with your family, and the little….like blow drying your hair, applying concealer, and...

The best gifts come from the heart, not the store.

But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a...

Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once.

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.

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad’s iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came...

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.

funny how a beautiful song could tell such a sad story

It didn’t make you noble to step away from something that wasn’t working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you...

Yes,’ he said, ‘a list. That way, I figure, we’ll have a written record of what we’ve agreed upon as our goals for our relationship. So if problems arise, we’ll be able to consult the...

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...

He grinned again. We’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks now, but this easy give-and-take still surprised me. From that very first day in my room, I felt like we’d somehow skipped...

Family,” she announced. “They’re the people in your life you don’t get to pick. The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose.””You’re bound to them by blood,” she continued,...

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...

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...

It’s hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. Those 3 or so months between 1 school year and the next always meant change. People got...

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.

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?

I knew, 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...

Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak.

…But that’s just the thing, right? 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.

You did listen.” He sat back, nodding his head. “Okay, then. Now tell me what you really thought.””I told you. It was interesting.””Interesting,” he said, “is not a word.””Since when?””It’s a placeholder. Something you use...

Silence is so freaking load

I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I’d practically invented.

I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.

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.

But as long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.

Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar....

Best Friends. And I thought of what she had done all the millions of times I cried to her, collapsing at even the slightest wounding of my heart or pride. So I reached over and...

You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can’t fake, no matter how hard you try

It was so quiet, I could hear my own breathing, loud in my ears. Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again...

But i was sure of something, too: it’s a lot easier to be lost than found. It’s the reason we’re always searching, and rarely discovered–so many locks, not enough keys.

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.

We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn’t really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It’s only when you really dig...

You get what you give, but also what you’re willing to take.

Sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it’s not what we want, at least it’s something.