He thought about this for a second. “True. But if you never really make friends, you probably don’t have anyone to be your 2 a.m. Which would kind of suck. I just looked at him...

It’s okay to accept things from people. It doesn’t make you weak or helpless.

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.

Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It’s a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.

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.

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...

The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures...

Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong.

Like it takes so little to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

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...

She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces,...

I want the white one

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.

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.

I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding my Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother’sPTA and Boo’s strange ways there was...

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.

It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

Shit,” Delia said. “I mean, shoot. No, actually, I mean shit. I really do.

Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a...

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.

for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.

I don’t know,” I said. “What else did you do for your first eighteen years?””Like I said,” he said as I unlocked the car, “I’m not so sure that you should go by my example.””Why...

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,...

He was not my boyfriend. On the other hand, he wasn’t just a friend either. Instead, our relationship was elastic, stretching between those two extremes depending on who else was around, how much either of...

My mother was strong, in all the ways I was weak. She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time...

I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.

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.

So you should remember that, when you’re thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it’s not so bad.

Isn’t it weird,” I said, “the way you remember things, when someone’s gone?”What do you mean?”I ate another piece of waffle. “When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It’s...

There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the stop button at just one moment to stop everything that came after. I had so...

I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

the truth about forever is that it is happening right now

Look,” I said, “We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn’t a surprise, it’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s what we wanted. Right?””Is it?” he asked. “Is it what...

What you have to decide… is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you’d want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is...

Nunca habría sido capaz de decírselo, pero Owen me inspiraba. Las mentiras piadosas que yo decía a diario, las cosas que me guardaba, cada vez que no era sincera del todo… ahora me daba cuenta...

What you do in your dreams is never your choice. But it made me happy anyway.

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...

Silence is so freaking loud

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...

There’s something nice about the silence of a car ride in the dark, going home. When you were tired of the radio and conversation, and it was okay to just be alone with your thoughts...

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.

But what he didn’t understand was that this dreamland was preferable,walking through this life half-sleeping,everything at arm’s length or farther away. I understood those mermaids.I didn’t care if they sang to me.All I wanted was...

Fifteen minutes later, a meeting was called. “Okay, look.” Deb’s face was dead serious. “I know I just joined this project, and I don’t want to offend anyone. But I’m going to be honest. I...

La música […] fue una vía de escape. Todo lo demás estaba cambiando o llegaba a su fin, pero la música era un recurso vasto, infinito.

Because that is what happens when you try to run from the past. It doesn’t just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left...

Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.

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...

Why does she have wings?’So she can fly.

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.

It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you’d been resisting, it always affected everything else, some...