I know everything and nothing about him all at the same time.
Good things, by their nature, are fleeting. It’s those that bring us grief that linger.
A good sister is one who won't be embarrassed when you burst into tears in public. A better one will hand you tissues until you stop. The best is the one who will go get you another latte to go with the ginormous chocolate orgy she's already laid in front of you.
If you want to know how someone really feels, you almost never have to ask.
They’re like sharks. Circling. Cute, single guy, good job, nice car. It’s all they know about me.” His tone was light but his expression serious. Maybe that’s because it’s all you show them.” Maybe it’s all they want to see.
I didn’t fall in love with James. Falling sounds like an accident. Falling hurts. I’d fallen in love with Michael, fallen hard like slipping off a cliff and hitting the rocks below. Falling in love was something I’d vowed never to do again. I chose to love James.
What are you, Elle? Are you a ghost? Are you an angel or a demon? Because you can’t be real.
Does madness bring creativity? Or does creativity cause madness? Can an artist create without the ups so high and the downs so low?
Bess had become the ocean, always breaking against the rocks but never staying broken. Her love was the ocean, too, endless and always changing, yet forever the same.
I knew him, but I don't understand him.
We labored under the pretense that nothing had changed when everything had, and I understood him, but i no longer knew him.
There's nothing that says you can't change." "Not even if it changes everything else?" I shook my head. "Not even then.
Sometimes, you turn back. Sometimes, you walk away. And sometimes, you find the place you're meant to be, and you stay there. You find a way to make it work. Whatever it takes.
Sometimes,” he said after a second that lasted a million years, “things get broken. And they can’t be fixed.
Macy: "Listen, I can't pretend to be the queen of good advice, here. I've had more boyfriends than I can count, and I'm not so sure that's any better than not having any. But I do know this. When you find someone who makes you smile and laugh, when you find someone who makes you feel safe, you shouldn't let that person go just because you're afraid." Elle: "And you're not afraid of it ending?" Macy: "Sure I am, But I'd rather have something this good for a little while than have nothing forever
Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does?
I looked at the cards in my hand, the queen of hearts nestled between the king of clubs and the king of spades. No wonder she was smiling.
He put my fingertips to his mouth and kissed them. Licked the trace of blood away. Made them clean. Then I knew the truth I had been denying. He made me clean. Dan made me clean and shining and bright. He made me beautiful, and I did not want to lose him.
He hadn’t been her first lover or the first boy to give her an orgasm. He hadn’t even been the first she’d loved. He’d been the first to turn her inside out with something as simple as a smile. The first to make her doubt herself. He’d taken her deeper than anyone ever had, and yet she hadn’t drowned.
The hardest lies to detect are the ones surrounded by truth.
I've done my best to drive you away, Sadie," he said suddenly. "But you've never left me.
I was trying to replace something I'd come to care about very much with something pretending to be as important.
He was quiet. I said nothing, hoping that maybe, for once, he'd stop pretenting he was okay. Then I could, too. That we could both forget the roles that had so long bound us.
If I'd known it was going to be the last time he'd ever hold me, I'd have paid better attention.
My head's filled up with all the reasons it won't work. And I keep running the figures, over and over, but I can't seem to come up with an answer.
