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Different People Were Good At Different Things, Lena Mused. Lena Was Good At Writing Thank-you Notes, For Instance, And Effie Was Good At Being Happy.

-Ann Brashares

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Different People Were Good

Ann Brashares

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Different People Were Good At Different Things, Lena Mused. Lena Was Good At Writing Thank-you Notes, For Instance, And Effie Was Good At Being Happy.

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She Realized All At Once The Deeper Thing That Bothered Her, The Thing That Made Him Not Just Irritating But Intolerable: How He Kept Loving Her Blindly When She Deserved It So Little.

The Distinction Has Blurred Between Young Adult And Adult Books. Some Of The Teen Books Have Become More Sophisticated.

A Lot Of Friendship Is About Practice, That’s Something I’ve Learned As I’ve Gotten Older. It’s Not Simply Some Spiritual Soul-bond Of Memories And Longings, It’s Really About Having Coffee Every Week, Or Talking On The Phone Every Day Or Every Other Day - Whatever Suits You.

He Wanted To Take His Love Back From Her So Badly. The Old Techniques Didn’t Work Anymore. In Fact, They’d Never Worked. How Do You Stop Loving Someone? It Was One Of The World’s More Brutal Mysteries. The More You Tried, The Less It Worked.

Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

Every Life I Start With Her, My Original Sin. I Know Myself Through Her.

And I Thought About The Color And I Realized What Blue It Was. It Was The Soft And Changeable, Essential Blue Of A Well-worn Pair Of Pants. Pants = Love

Life Isn't Just Fair. It's Just Fairer Than Death, That's All. -william Goldman

She Couldn’t Hide From Everyone For The Rest Of Her Life… Well She Could. That Was The Direction Things Were Going. But She Knew From Long-ago Experience That When You Were Uncertain And If You Were Courageous Enough To Let Her In A Real Friend Could Do A World Of Good.

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

It Was Probably Good You Couldn't Flip The Love Switch Because Sometimes It Was What You Needed Even If You Didn't Want It.

Show Me A Girl With Her Feet Planted Firmly On The Ground And I'll Show You A Girl Who Can't Put Her Pants On. -annik Marchand

He Loved Her For Being So Beautiful, And He Hated Her For It. He Loved How She Put Shiny Stuff On Her Lips For Him, And He Also Reviled Her For It. He Wanted Her To Walk Home Alone, And He Wanted To Run After Her And Grab Her Up Before She Could Take Another Step.

She Was Alive, And They Were Dead. She Had To Try To Make Her Life Big. As Big As She Could. She Promised Bailey She Would Keep Playing.

It Was A Blessing And Also A Curse Of Handwritten Letters That Unlike Email You Couldn’t Obsessively Reread What You’d Written After You’d Sent It. You Couldn’t Attempt To Un-send It. Once You’d Sent It It Was Gone. It Was An Object That No Longer Belonged To You But Belonged To Your Recipient To Do With What He Would. You Tended To Remember The Feeling Of What You’d Said More Than The Words. You Gave To Object Away And Left Yourself With The Memory. That Was What It Was To Give.

Sometimes You Need To Make A Mess. -loretta, The Rollinses' Hosekeeper

There Was One Thing Bridget Like About Guys. They Took Insults Well.

His Distress And Pleasure Mixed And Married, Giving Birth To Several Anxious Children.

The Present No Matter What I Brought Couldn’t Change The Past. The Past Was Set And Sealed.

I Agree That A Love Of Reading Is A Great Gift For A Parent To Pass On To His Or Her Child.

It Was Funny How The Old Practices Always Came Around Again. It Was The Rhythm Of Human Enterprise To Invent And Worship Some New Approach, To Fully Reject It A Generation Later, To Realize The Need For It Again A Generation Or Two After That And Then Hastily Reinvent It As New, Usually Without Its Original Elegance. Scientists Hated To Look Backward For Anything.

Blood May Be Thicker Than Water, But Friendship Is Thicker Than Both.

It Was Hard To Feel The Right Emotions At The Right Times. They Didn’t Come At All When You Set A Place For Them, And They Sacked When You Weren’t Ready, When You Were Just Innocently Flossing Your Teeth, For Example, Or Eating A Bowl Of Cereal.

Let Me Love You, But Don't Love Me Back. Do Love Me And Let Me Hate You For A While. Let Me Feel Like I Have Some Control, Because I Know I Never Do.

The Ocean Was The Best Place, Of Course. That Was What She Loved Most. It Was A Feeling Of Freedom Like No Other, And Yet A Feeling Of Communion With All The Other Places And Creatures The Water Touched.

The Problem Is Not The Problem. The Problem Is Your Attitude About The Problem. Got That? -coach Brevin

He Took Her In His Arms Right Away. "i'm So Sorry," He Murmured In Her Ear. He Rocked Her, Saying It Over And Over. But No Matter How Many Times He Said It, No Matter How Much She Knew He Meant It, The Words Stirred Around In Her Ear But Didn't Get Into Her Brain. Sometimes He Could Comfort Her. Sometimes He Said What She Needed, But Today He Couldn't Reach Her. Nothing Could.

I Love That Blurry Place Where Life’s Transitions Are Made Without You Even Knowing It.

Exactly! We Run Or We Lose Ourselves In Something, Somebody, Anything To Try And Ease Our Pain.

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

As Much As I'm Drawn To Writing About Teenage Girls, I Like The Idea Of Having The Freedom To Branch Out And Write About Different Ages, For Different Ages.

He Didn't Seem To Realize That Three Excuses Was As Good As No Excuse.

Gestating Characters Feels Something Like The Mental Equivalent Of Gestating A Baby. In Both Cases, To Create Them You Lose Yourself. Or At Least You Reshape Yourself To Encompass Them.

Losing Yourself

How Many Times Could You Give Up On Someone You Loved?

You Know What The Secret Is? It's So Simple. We Love One Another. We're Nice To One Another. Do You Know How Rare That Is? - Carmen

The Most Haunting Thing Was Not That He Didn't Love Her Anymore. She Could Have Accepted That Eventually. The Most Haunting Thing Was That He Did. He Loved Her From Afar. He Loved Her In A Way That Was Preserved In Time, That Couldn't Be Sullied. And She Tended It In Her Careful, Curatorial Way.

The Weather Turned. Her Skin Seemed To Grow A Million Extra Pores, And All Of Them Opened To Take In The Warmth And Tenderness Of The Air. The Sun On Her Face Made Her Want To Cry. Into All Those Millions Of Open Pores Came The Sunshine, And Other Feelings As Well. In And Out. She Was Porous.

Lena Was An Introvert. She Knew She Had Trouble Connecting With People. She Always Felt Like Her Looks Were Fake Bait, Seeming To Offer A Bridge To People, Which She Couldn't Easily Cross.

Sex Could Be A Blissful Communion,. But It Could Also Be A Weapon, And Its Absence, Sometimes, Was Required For The Establishment Of Peace.

It’s Natural To Overlook And Even Sacrifice The Things That Belong To Us Most Easily Most Gracefully. So Here’s Me Asking You To Please Not Make That Mistake.

Don't Talk To Me. I'm Tired And Grumpy And I'll Probably Make Fun Of You.

How Sad It Was, Carmen Thought, That You Acted Awful When You Were Desperately Sad And Hurt And Wanted To Be Loved. How Tragic Then, The Way Everyone Avoided You And Tiptoed Around You When You Really Needed Them. Carmen Knew This Vicious Predicament As Well As Anyone In The World. How Bitter It Felt When You Acted Badly To Everyone And Ended Up Hating Yourself The Most.

What Made You Feel That Stomach-churning Agony For One Person And Not Another? If Bridget Were God, She Would Have Made It Against The Law For You To Feel That Way About Someone Without Them Having To Feel It For You Right Back.

Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

You Forget Your Victories, But You Remember The Losses.

Maybe, Sometimes, It's Easier To Be Mad At The People You Trust Because You Know They'll Always Love You, No Matter What.

She Wasn't As Destructive As Bee. She Had Never Been As Dramatic. Rather, She'd Slipped Carefully, Stealthily Away From Her Ghosts.

It Was Their Mothers, Long Ago. Tibby Noted With Joy That All Four Of Them Were Wearing Jeans.

At The Worst Possible Moment, The Most Painful, Darkest Moment When You Can't Take It Anymore And You Are Afraid, That Is When A Feeling Of Peace And Comfort Will Come Over You, And It's Like Nothing You've Ever Felt.

Love Didn't Necessarily Look The Way You Expected It To.

Carmen Hated The 'life Is Too Short" Rationalization. She Thought It Was One Of The Lamer Excuses In The History Of Excuse-making. Whenever You Did Something Because "life Is Too Short Not To," You Could Be Sure Life Would Be Just Long Enough To Punish You For It.

Life Is Too Short

She Thought She Would Know When It Happened. But Now, As She Looked Around, She Wondered If It Was Really Like That At All. Maybe It Happened In A Million Different Ways, When You Were Thinking Of It And You Weren't. Maybe There Was No Gap, No Jump, No Chasm. You Didn't Forget Yourself All At Once. Maybe You Just Looked Around One Time Or Another And You Thought, Hey. And There You Were.

Her Body Was A Prison, Her Mind Was A Prison. Her Memories Were A Prison. The People She Loved. She Couldn't Get Away From The Hurt Of Them. She Could Leave Eric, Walk Out Of Her Apartment, Walk Forever If She Liked, But She Couldn't Escape What Really Hurt. Tonight Even The Sky Felt Like A Prison.

Looking Back, It Was The Thing In His Life That Shamed Him The Most: The Times He Was Purposefully, Calculatingly Mean To Alice. It Was Those Moments, And There Had Been Many Of Them, That Indicated To Him That He Was Not A Good Person. He Got Mad At Her For Many Things, But It Was Always Really For The Same Thing: That She Possessed His Love And He Couldn't Seem To Get It Back. She Didn't Deserve It, Which Was To Say She Deserved Better

You Don't Have Time, Len. That Is The Most Bitter And The Most Beautiful Pieve Of Advice I Can Offer. If You Don't Have What You Want Now, You Don't Have What You Want. -pg276

Luck Never Gives; It Lends.

They Needed To Grieve Alone Was What Tibby's Dad Said. Lena Wondered If Really There Was Any Choice In That. Everyone Grieved Alone.

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

I Always Interpret Coincidences As Little Clues To Our Destiny

You Surround Yourself With Your Pain Or You Avoid It And Let It Find You When You Are Trying To Do Other Things

Surround Yourself

She Wanted Him To See All Of Her And Also None Of Her. She Wanted Him To Be Dazzled By The Bits And Blinded By The Whole. She Wanted Him To See Her Whole And Not In Pieces. She Had Hopes That Were Hard To Satisfy.

But Then She Hadn’t Just Learned To Love This Summer – She Had Also Learned How To Need.

When Your About To Criticize Someone Walk A Mile In Thier Shoes, That Way When You Criticize Them You're A Mile Away From Them And You Have Their Shoes

What If People Knew They Were Recycled? Would That Change Anything?

Love Demands Everything, They Say, But My Love Demands Only This: That No Matter What Happens Or How Long It Takes, You`ll Keep Faith In Me, You`ll Remember Who We Are, And You`ll Never Feel Despair.

I Sometimes Think The Stronger You Feel About Someone, The Harder It Is To Picture Their Face When You Are Away From Them.

He No Longer Represented Someday A Possibility. He Represented A Road Not Taken A Road That Suddenly Shot So Far Into The Distance She Couldn’t See It Anymore.

I Told Him, Though, That He Better Be Good To You. When You Came Along, I Said I'd Share You, But I Told Him To Remember That You're My Sister. I Loved You First.

Can You Make Yourself Love? Can You Make Yourself Loved? -lena Kaligaris

Her Vision Of The World Under The Water Represented A Beautiful Stillness, A Version Of Heaven. It Was The Lost City Of Lena, Her Alternate Universe, The Life She Yearned For But Didn't Get To Have.

He Tricked Himself Into Thinking That She Would Look Into His Eyes And Remember, That Love Would Conquer All.

But There Were Times When You Felt Miserable And You Wanted To Feel Better, And Other Times When You Felt Miserable And You Figured You Would Just Keep On Feeling Miserable.

Your Problem Isn't The Problem, It's Your Attitude About The Problem.

She Closed Her Eyes. "i Didn't Know That. I Didn't Know Anything. It Scares Me The Things I Told Myself. But I Would Have Told Myself Almost Anything, Because I Wanted To Believe Him." "why?" "because I Wanted To Be With You.

It’s More That I’m Afraid Of Time. And Not Having Enough Of It. Time To Figure Out Who I’m Supposed To Be… To Find My Place In The World Before I Have To Leave It. I’m Afraid Of What I’ll Miss.

She Wondered Again About Her Inclination To Wish For Things That Made Her So Deeply Unhappy.

He'd Pushed Her. He'd Scared Her. He'd Besieged Her. He'd Vowed He Wouldn't, And He Did.

This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

When I Turned Fifteen, I Remember My Father Gave Me A Credit Card Which I Was Allowed To Use For Two Things: Emergencies And Books.

They Were Here All At Once, But Not Together. Survival Took Self-absorption, And It Made Them Strangers With Nothing To Do And No Way To Relate. Emergencies Gave You A Shape And A Plot To Take Part In, While Death Was No Story At All. It Left You Nothing.

She'd Cried Over A Broken Heart Before. She Knew What That Felt Like, And It Didn't Feel Like This. Her Heart Felt Not So Much Broken As Just ... Empty. It Felt Like She Was An Outline Empty In The Middle. The Outline Cried Senselessly For The Absent Middle. The Past Cried For The Present That Was Nothing.

She Loved Her Mother And Depended On Her Mother, And Yet Every Single Word Her Mother Said Annoyed Her.

Daniel?" "yes." "did You Ever Think We Were Meant Not To Be Together?" "no. We Are Meant To Be Together. We Are Just Meant To Want It Very Badly.

The Dreams Weren’t As Pleasing When They Had No Chance Of Coming True

Do You Have Any Idea How Much I've Loved You?

Because She Was Raw And Uncertain, And She Liked To Keep All The Messy Parts Of Herself To Herself. ... As Much As Lena Liked To Hide The Mess And Display The Finished Product, By This Point She Was All Mess And No Product.

All My Life, Everybody Has Seen Me A Certain Way. What Do You See?

What Happened To Me By Myself Felt Partly Dreamed, Partly Imagined, Definitely Shifted And Warped By My Own Fears And Wants. But Who Knows? Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

When There Is Nothing, There Is The Possibility Of Everything.

She Went Around With A Broken Heart, And She Wasn't Sure Who'd Broken It. She Thought It Was Herself, Mostly.

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

I'm Writing This Down, Because It Is Going To Be Hard For Me To Say It. Because This Is Probably Our Last Time Just Us. See, I Can Write That Down, But I Don't Think I Can Say It. I'm Not Doing This To Say Goodbye, Though I Know That Has To Be Part Of It. I'm Doing It To Thank You For All We Have Had And Done And Been For One Another, To Say I Love You For Making This Life Of Mine What It Is. Leaving You Is The Hardest Thing I Have To Do. But The Thing Is, The Best Parts Of Me Are In You, All Three Of You. You Are Who I Am, And What I Cherish In Myself Stays On In You.

I'm Not Going Anywhere Without You. We're Swimming To China Together. And If The Worst Happens, I'm Dying With You Before I'm Living Without You.

She Was Sad About What Happened To Kostos. And Someplace Under That, She Was Sad That People Like Bee And Kostos, Who Had Lost Everything, Were Still Open To Love, And She, Who'd Lost Nothing, Was Not.

Lost Everything

She Wondered If Maybe Tragedy Was What It Took To Make Your Heart Capable Of Admitting A New Member.

Once Paul Told Her That The Beach Was Like Him Because It Changed Every Day But It Never Made Any Progress. Later She Remembered Thinking That A Normal Person Might Have Begun By Saying That He Was Like The Beach.

She Used To Cry Roughly Three Times A Year. Now She Seemed To Cry Three Times Before Breakfast. Could That Be Considered Progress?

I Hated Motorcycles. I Said To My Mother, 'i'll Never Get A Motorcycle.' And She Said, 'you Never Know What You'll Want When You Are Older.' After That, The Thing That Scared Me Was Not So Much The Motorcycle Itself, But That I Could Turn Into A Person Who Would Want One. I Was Scared Of The Idea That I Could Become An Entirely Different Person, A Stranger To Myself.

It's So Much Easier To Have No Expectations Than To Have Big Ones.

Tibby Sat On The Outside Of A Group Of Kids In The Film Program. There Was A Lot Of Dark Clothing And Heavy Footwear, And Quite A Few Piercings Glinting In Sunlight. They Had Invited Her To Sit With Them While They All Finished Up Their Lunches Before Film Seminar. Tibby Knew That They Had Invited Her Largely Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose. This Bugged Her Almost As Much As When People Excluded Her Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose.

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

As A Writer, You Live In Such Isolation. It's Hard To Imagine Your Book Has A Life Beyond You.

I Dont Really Write With The Idea Of Trying To Teach Any Lessons. I Want To Tell A Story As Truthfully And Engagingly As I Can, And Then Let The Chips Fall Where They May.

You Couldn't Erase The Past. You Couldn't Even Change It. But Sometimes Life Offered You The Opportunity To Put It Right.

Wish For What You Want, Work For What You Need. -carmen's Grandmother

If You Didn't Have A Choice, You Had To Make A Choice. If You Didn't Have Options, You Made Some. You Couldn't Just Let This World Happen To You... He Didn't See Eternity. He Saw This Girl And This Moment And This One Slim Chance.

People Sometimes Talk About The Power Of First Impressions, And Believe Me, There Is Truth To It.

First Impression

We Aren't In High School. We Aren't Really In Our Families And We Aren't In Our Houses. Those Are The Places We Grew Up And The Times We Spent Together, But They Aren't Us. If Think They Are, Then We're Lost, Because Times End And Places Are Lost. We Aren't Any Place Or Any Time . . . We Are Everywhere.

Knowing Where She Was In The World, Even If He Never Touched Her, Gave Him A Deep Satisfaction, And He Half Despised Himself For Being Satisfied With So Little.

Bridget Cried For The Leavers And The Left. For The People, Like Herself, Grimly Forsaking What Precious Gifts They Would Ever Get.

Sometimes He Felt Sure That The Key To Happiness Was A Poor Memory.

She Must Have Sensed She Never Really Had Him. That Was A Sadness Of Hers, He Knew.

She Was Still Waiting For Him To Come Back To Her, Even Though He Wasn't Going To. She Was Still Holding Out For Something That Wasn't Going To Happen. She Was Good At Waiting. That Seemed Like A Sad Thing To Be Good At.

Maybe Happiness Was Just A Matter Of The Little Upticks- The Traffic Signal That Said "walk" The Second You Go There- And Downticks- The Itch Tag At The Back Of Your Collar- That Happened To Every Person In The Course Of The Day. Maybe Everybody Had The Same Allotted Measure Of Happiness Within Each Day.

How Is It That A Person Could Be So Relieved And So Disappointed, Both At The Same Time.

Relief Is A Short-lived Emotion, Passive And Thin. The Agony Of Doubt Disappears, Leaving Little Memory Of How It Really Felt. Life Aligns Behind The New Truth.

Some Things Have To Be Believed To Be Seen. -ralph Hodgson

Please Believe Him. Keep Your Heart Open To Him. He Can Make You Happy. He Has Always Loved You, And You Once Loved Him With All Your Heart.

For The First Time She Saw That The Nurse's Name Was Tabitha.

Forget Jack, I'm In Love With The Cold, Dirt Floor.

Some People Fall In Love Over And Over Again While Some People Can Only Do It Once.

Falling In Love

Carmen Didn't Like Change, And She Certainly Didn't Like Endings.

There Was Nothing New In Sitting On This Dock, On This Or That Wooden Bench, Watching For His Boat To Come. In Some Ways, She Was Always Waiting For Him.

There Are Moments In Your Life When The Big Pieces Slide And Shift. Sometimes The Big Changes Dong Happen Gradually But All At Once. That's How It Was For Us. That Was The Day We Discovered That Friends Can Do Things For You That Your Parents Can't.

There Was A Moment In Between, A Moment Flung Free In The Midst Of The Transition, When He Made Contact. That Was The Moment She Would Dwell On.

It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth It.

When You Feel Someone Else's Pain And Joy As Powerfully As If It Were Your Own, Then You Know You Really Loved Them.

Inspirational Love

But Like Everything Else, Love Changed.

You Thought You Had The Choice To Stay Still Or Move Forward, But Your Didn't. As Long As Your Heart Kept Pumping An Your Blood Kept Blowing And Your Lungs Kept Filling, You Didn't. The Pang She Felt For Tibby Carried Something Like Envy. You Couldn't Stand Still For Anything Short Of Death, And God Knew She Had Tried.

But Will He Come I Just Want To Know What You Think The Odds Are. Tell Me What You Really Think." "i Think Tibby Was A Wise Girl. I Think She Loved You.

Everything I Ever Said To You Was True And Is True.

Shy” Was The Sympathetic Interpretation She Got From Older People. “snotty” Was The Interpretation She Got From People Her Own Age.

It Was Funny To Hear Her Voice Aloud. Her Thoughts And Perceptions Usually Existed So Deep Inside Her, They Rarely Made It To The Surface Without A Deliberate Effort.

To Write A Story, I Think You Really Have To Open Yourself Up To The World.

There Are Some People Who Fall In Love Over And Over.

Falling In Love

Polly Was Pretty Good At Dieting, All Right, But She Was Beginning To Wonder Whether You Ever Lost The Parts Of Your Self That You Wanted To Lose.

She Perched On Her Windowsill, Gazing At The Lurid Sun Soaking Into The Caldera, Trying To Appreciate It Even Though She Couldn’t Have It. Why Did She Always Feel She Had To Do Something In The Face Of Beauty?

Tibby Cried Into Her Soup When It Finally Came. "i'm Scared... ," She Told It. The Carrots And Peas Made No Reply, But She Felt Better For Having Told Them.

Maybe The Truth Is, There's A Little Bit Of Loser In All Of Us. Being Happy Isn't Having Everything In Your Life Be Perfect. Maybe It's About Stringing Together All The Little Things.

When You Remembered To Forget, You Were Remembering. It Was When You Forgot To Forget That You Forgot.

She Had Never Had A Boy Talk To Her Like That. There Was No Cover Of Bullshit, No Flirtation, No Added Charm, But His Look Was Searing. He Was Different From Anyone She Had Known.

For Some Reason Our Lives Were Marked By Summers. . . . Summer Was The Time When Our Lives Joined Completely, When We All Had Our Birthdays, When Really Important Things Happened

Women Always Seemed To Bring The Size They Wished They Were To The Fitting Room, Rather Than The Size That Would Actually Fit.

I'm Dying With You Before I'm Living Without You.

The Bottom Had Arrived. She Crashed Against It, But It Brought No Sense Of Closure Or Understanding. She Just Lay There At The Bottom Looking Up. She Knew There Must Be A Very Tiny Circle Of Light Up There Somewhere, But Just Now She Couldn’t See It.

There Were Certain Qualities You Possessed Carelessly. And You Couldn't Retrieve Them When They Were Gone. The Very Act Of Caring Made Them Impossible To Regain.

Marnie Hated To See Her Spend So Much Of Herself On Someone Who Didn't Care.

She Kept Walking. The Very Small, Brave Part Of Her Brain Knew That This Would Be Her One Chance. If She Turned Around, She Would Lose It.

Their Friendship Was Only One Aspect Of Their Lives But It Seemed To Give Meaning To All The Others.

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight--at Least As They Normally Experienced Them....some People Lost Their Individuality In The Water, But Riley Always Felt Most Herself. Water Was Supposed To Symbolize Renewal, She Knew, But When Riley Swam, Pared Down, Alone, And Unreachable--she Felt A Deeper Sense Of Who She Already Was.

But Certain Souls Cohere. It's Rare But Possible. But It Takes Two Powerful Wills To Make It So.

She Cared About Him Too Much, And He Was A Dangerous Person To Love. He Wouldn't Love Her Back.

Healing Wasn’t Always The Best Thing. Sometimes A Hole Was Better Left Open. Sometimes It Healed Too Thick And Too Well And Left Separate Pieces Fused And Incompetent. And It Was Harder To Reopen After That.

Carmen Sat Up When She Heard A Familiar Trill From Her Computer. It Was An Instant Message From Bee. Beezy3: Packing. Do You Have My Purple Sock With The Heart On The Ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I'd Wear Your Socks. Carmen Looked From Her Computer Screen Down To Her Feet. To Her Dismay, Her Socks Were Two Faintly Different Shades Of Purple. She Rotated Her Foot To Get A View Of Her Anklebone. Carmabelle: Ahem. Might Possibly Have Sock.

I Look Back On My 20s. It's Supposed To Be The Prime Of Your Life, The Most Vital, The Most Beautiful. But You're Making Your Critical Decisions And Sometimes Your Most Critical Mistakes.

Critical Decisions

All The Things She Planned To Feel, The Way She Planned To Look And Seem, The Appropriate Things She Planned To Say. None Of Them Came To Pass.

He's Had A Lot Of Chances To Care, And He Hasn't.

You Remember What Is Lost, And You Forget What's Right In Front Of You.

There Was Love Expressed In The Places You Usually Forget To Look.

Don't Ask Me Any Questions Right Now. I'm Grumpy And I'll Probablly Make Fun Of You. -effie Kaligaris

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight—at Least As The Normally Experienced Them.

If You Ever Meet A Guy And You Fall In Love With Him, But Because Of Some Weird Genetic Mutation He Doesn't Seem To Return The Feeling?... Wear That Dress.

Falling In Love

Marnie Loved Her Better And More Honestly Than Anyone Else In The World, With The Possible Exception Of Her Mother, Who Loved Her Intensely If Not Honestly.

He Took Her Hand And They Started Walking Toward The Baggage Claim. They Didn't Say Anything To Each Other. They Swung Their Held Hands Like Little Kids, Like They Believed Anything Could Happen, Like They Might Take Off Soaring Into The Air. All The Things You Wanted To Happen Could Happen. Why Not?

During Intermission She Peeked Out At The Theater, Watching It Refill. When It Was Almost Full And The Lights Blinked On And Off, She Saw Three People File In Through The Center Door And Her Breath Caught. Time Lapsed As They Walked Down The Center Aisle: Three Teenage Girls All In A Row. They Were So Big, So Bright, So Beautiful, So Magnificent To Carmen’s Eyes That She Thought She Was Imagining Them. They Were Like Goddesses, Like Titans. She Was So Proud Of Them! They Were Benevolent And They Were Righteous. Now, These Were Friends.

She Remembered Me.' This Was His Worst Weakness, His Most Toxic Drug.

The Path Of Your Life Can Change In An Instant.

Life Can Change In An Instant

I Did The Searching And Remembering, She Did The Disappearing And The Forgetting.

There Are Going To Be Moments Of Deep, Deep Doubts, And You Have To Have Faith That Your Initial Idea Was Good And Just Muddle Through.

It's Always Nervewracking To Put Yourself Out There. But It's The Root Of Joy.

Putting Yourself Out There

The Happiness At Getting What You Want Is Not Usually Commensurate With The Worry Leading Up To It.

Getting What You Want

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

Love Yourself And Your Friends Unconditionally .

Sometimes You Couldn’t Face The Sadness Of Being Forgotten Until You Felt The Comfort Of Being Remembered Again.

Please Don't Judge Me Too Much Until You Are Older And Know More Things. (spoken From Mother To Daughter)

Different People Were Good At Different Things, Lena Mused. Lena Was Good At Writing Thank-you Notes, For Instance, And Effie Was Good At Being Happy.

The Phone Was Her Worst Enemy And Her Best Friend But She Never Knew Which Until She Answered It.

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

Tibby Was Shaking Her Head. "what?" Bailey Asked. "nothing. Just That You Suprise Me Every Day," Tibby Said. Bailey Smiled At Her. "i Like That You Let Yourself Be Suprised.

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

The Word Friends Doesn't Seem To Stretch Big Enough To Describe How We Feel About Each Other. We Forget Where One Of Us Starts And The Other One Stops.

She Had To Have Faith Not Just In Trying But In Failing. Was She Strong Enough To Fail Was She Strong Enough Not To

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

But I Know This. We're Ready To Move Forward Again In Our Way. Together Or Apart, No Matter How Far Apart, We Live In One Another. We Go On Together.

Why Does He Have To Be My Boyfriend? Are You Inferior If You Don't Have A Boyfriend? Why Does Everybody Have To Be In Love With Somebody?

Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Were A World-famous Heartthrob Or A Painful Geek. Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Friend Was Possibly Dying. Maybe You Just Got Through It. Maybe That Was All You Could Ask For.

She Glared At Him, Feeling The Old Frustration. Sometimes In His Presence She Felt The Deepest Connection To Him, And Other Times She Felt Completely Alone-as Though Any Bond To Him Was Her Own Bitter Imagination.

She Got Tired Of Herself. She Got Tired Of Not Being Able To Say What She Wanted Or Do What She Wanted Or Even Want What She Wanted.

I Do Believe That Characters In Novels Belong To Their Writers And Their Readers Pretty Equally. I've Learned A Lot Of Things About The Characters I Write From People Who Read About Them. Readers Expand Them In Ways I Don't Think Of And Take Them To Places I Can't Go.

As The Three Of Them Walked Home From The Trees, Nobody Needed To Say It, But Ama Knew. They Had Questioned Their Friendship. They Had Searched And Wondered, Looking For A Sign. And All Along They'd Had Their Trees. You Couldn't Wear Them. You Couldn't Pass Them Around. They Offered No Fashion Advantage. But They Had Roots. They Lived.

Parents Were The Only Ones Obligated To Love You; From The Rest Of The World You Had To Earn It.

It Took The Real Thing To Show You The Size Of Your Delusions.

Age Is Not So Much A Feature Of Your Character, As The Spot Where You Stand For A Pretty Fleeting Time On The Arc Of Your Life.

We Forgive And Forget. At Least I Forgive And He Forgets.

Forgive And Forget

I Want To Go Where You're Going. I'm Not Scared Of Dying. I Want To Stay Together And Come Back Together. You Said That Souls Cohere. I Want To Stay With You.

She Thought She Was Independent And Strong, But She Got One Small Taste Of Love And She Was Hungrier Than Anyone. She Was Ravenous.

He Had To Fight. That's All He Had. Not Memories, Not Experiences, Not Skills. He Had A Will. And His Will Was To Fight Until He Couldn't Fight Anymore.

She Wasn’t Sure If He Wanted More From Her Or If He Wanted Less. Maybe It Was Both. Maybe It Was Always Both.

A Loving Soul Was Always More Beautiful Over The Long Haul, But Actual Prettiness Was Fleeting.

Love Made You Admire Funny Things About A Person, Like How Good She Was At Remembering To Return Her Library Books And At Slicing Cucumbers Very Thin. She Was A Veritable Wonder At Pulling A Splinter Out Of Her Foot.

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Harold W. Dodds

John C. Danforth

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