the point is there’s no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you’re left with a choice. Either hope for the best, or just expect the worst.”If you expect the...

I remembered Owen telling me how music had saved him in Phoenix, that it drowned everything out, and it was the same for me now. As long as I had something to listen to, I...

I’m sorry,” I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast...

Life is full of screwups. You’re supposed to fail sometimes. It’s a required part of the human existance.

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.

A united front announcing a split.

Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on.

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.

Life shouldn’t be about the either/or. We’re capable of more than that, you know?

Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.-Maggie

Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never really learning a single thing.

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn’t shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and...

Isn’t it weird? The way you remember things when it’s gone.

I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined.

If you have just one person believe in you, you’ll always find your way

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 should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.

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.

I’d still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn’t happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the...

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.’Really,’ I said.We’re passive-aggressive people,’ she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘Silence is our weapon...

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 hadn’t said goodbye. It had been easier, like always, to just disappear, sparing myself the messy details of another farewell. Now, my fingers hovered over my track pad, moving the cursor down to his...

Maybe a marriage, like a life, isn’t only about the Big Moments, whether they be bad or good. Maybe it’s all the small things–like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day– that stretch out...

Timing clicking together, finally, pieces falling into place.

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...

that 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...

Do you even realize how happythe average teenage girl would be in your shoes? I have a credit card. We’reat the mall. I want to buy you things. It’s like adolescent nirvana.”- Cora

a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just...

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.

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.

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.

School was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives.

Well, it’s true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit. But it’s also true that I have loved, and been loved. and that carries a weight of its own. A greater...

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...

The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.

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...