Quotes in category: “Authors”:

It was like being drunk, how you so rarely feel drunk enough to do the thing you want to, you still feel pinned back by your own sense of rational or the proper, but the next day, hung over, you realize just how drunk you were. You had a window of opportunity. If you had used it, you probably would have embarrassed yourself, but in not using it, you wasted something irretrievable

I wanted to be the person [he] told things to. I wanted him to think I was pretty, I wanted him to be reminded of me by stuff I liked-- pistachios and hooded sweatshirts and the Dylan song "Girl from the North Country"-- and I wanted him to miss me when we were apart. I wanted him to feel, when we were lying in bed together, like he couldn't imagine anywhere better.

What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and--let's be frank--fun, fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's efforts bring you. The mystery is all.

It was the kind of kiss I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know I was never so happy in my whole life.

"what happens if your choice is misguided?” I ask, softly.
“you must try to correct it.”
“but what if it’s too late? what if you can’t?”
“then you must find a way to live with it.” 

For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better.

Sometimes you couldn’t face the sadness of being forgotten until you felt the comfort of being remembered again.

I had to know that he existed. that was all. Everything else I could endure. So long as he existed.

The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you. Or who isn't. 

What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn’t starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn’t enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. Love is the only rational act. 

Even though everything had ended, I didn’t regret it. I never regretted it, not for one second. How do you regret one of the best nights of your life? You don’t. You remember every word, every look. Even when it hurts, you still remember. 

In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."

You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see; you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too -- even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling. 

Sometimes when we’re in love, we take the facts and spin them into pretty stories. But it’s a dangerous thing to do—because one day, like it or not, you’re going to see the world as it really is. You find out people aren’t always who you want them to be. And if you’re not ready for the truth…well, let’s just say it can come as a bit of a shock.

Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. 'Look what's going to happen to me!' 

Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?' The first wave says, 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?' The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.'"

Lost love s still love. It takes a different form that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor, but when those senses weaken, another heightens; memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

and even though she was sitting in the seat next to him, he felt her in everything, in the steering wheel, in the gas pedal, in the blinking of his eye, in the clearing of his throat. every move he made was about hanging on to her

When it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you’re not afraid.

And the weirdest thing of all is that it feels so right. I supposes it's true what they say, you never know it's right until it is, although I'm really scared of saying that out loud just in case he turns out to be a bastard, but somehow I don't think he will.

Everytime I shot back with," What's wrong with living in a dream world?" she'd say, " you have to wake up"

He thought time and patience would change me, and, though I knew he was dead wrong, I also knew that I would let him try. He was my best friend. I would always love him, and it would never, ever be enough.

You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have... is now.

You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.

There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.