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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.

-Ann Brashares

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I'm Writing This Down,

Ann Brashares

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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.

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

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

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

You Could Feel Things Or You Could Find A Way To Shut Down. But Once You Were Feeling Things, You Couldn’t Decide Exactly What To Feel. That Was The Trouble With Letting Them In At All. They Made A Mess Of The Place.

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.

She Knew That When She Got Old It Would Be More Fun To Look Back On A Life Of Romance And Adventure Than A Life Of Quiet Habits. But Looking Back Was Easy. It Was The Doing That Was Painful. There Were Plenty Of Things She Would Like To Look Back On But Wasn't Willing To Risk.

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

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

I Love Her. I Need Her. I Gave Away Everything I Had For Her. I Just Wanted Her To Know Me.

It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Rules Took A While To Sort Out. Lena And Carmen Wanted To Focus On Friendship-type Rules, Stuff About Keeping In Touch With One Another Over The Summer, And Making Sure The Pants Kept Moving From One Girl To The Next. Tibby Preferred To Focus On Random Things You Could And Couldn't Do In The Pants --- Like Picking Your Nose.

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

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

I Think Pants Have Unique Qualities, Especially In A Woman’s Life. Whatever Bodily Insecurities We Have, We Seem To Take Out On Our Pants.

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.

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 Was Astonished, And At The Same Time She Knew. There Were Many Things In Life Like That. You Couldn’t Imagine It, And Then It Happened And You Couldn’t Really Imagine It Hadn’t.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Love Is Like War; Easy To Begin, Hard To End.

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

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

Someday When You're Twenty, Maybe, I'll See You Again. You'll Be This Hot Soccer Star At Some Great School, With A Million Guys More Interesting Than I Am Chasing You Down. And You Know What? I'll See You And I'll Pray You Want Me Still.

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.

Love Yourself And Your Friends Unconditionally .

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.

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.

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.

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

Love Who You Love While You Have Them. That's All You Can Do. Let Them Go When You Must. If You Know How To Love, You'll Never Run Out.

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

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

Getting What You Want

You Get Older And You Learn There Is One Sentence Just Four Worlds Long And If You Can Say It To Yourself It Offers More Comfort Than Almost Any Other. It Goes Like This… Ready ” “ready.” “at Least I Tried.

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

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

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.

Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

It Was Frustrating When People Loved You And Took An Interest In You And Sometimes Worried About You And Personally Cared What You Did With Yourself. Lena Wished That Love Were Something You Could Flip On And Off. You Could Turn It On When You Felt Good Bout Yourself And Worthy Of It And Generous Enough To Return It. You Could Clip It Off When You Needed To Hide Or Self-destruct And Had Nothing At All To Give." (lena, 194)

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.

Starting Is Hard So I Really Need To Give Myself Permission To Do A Bad Job. I Always Give Myself Leave To Write Total Nonsense For As Long As I Need To Release The Pressure, Because It's Really Hard To Start If You Feel Like That First Sentence You Write Has To Actually Mean Something.

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

Lena Knew She Had Spent Too Much Of Her Life In A State Of Passive Dread, Just Waiting For Something Bad To Happen. In A Life Like That, Relief Was As Close As You Got To Happiness.

Someday Was The Thing He Had, Because It Was A Lot Harder To Ruin Than Today.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Putting Yourself Out There

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

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.

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.

My Household Is, In A Nice Way, Very Busy.

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.

She Knew Whose Love She Doubted. It Wasn't Her Parents' And It Wasn't Her Friends: It Was Her Own.

She Existed In Her Friends; There She Was. All The Parts Of Herself She'd Forgotten. She Knew Herself Best When She Was With Them.

She Was Supposed To Be Putting Her Life Together Right Now, And All She Could Seem To Do Was Throw Grenades At It.

Ruins Stood For What Was Lost, And Yet There Were Beautiful-peaceful, Historic, Intellectual. Not Tragic Or Regrettable. Lena Tried To Keep Hers That Way Too, And She Succeeded To Some Extent. Why Not Celebrate What You Had Rather Than Spend Your Time Mourning Its Passing? There Could Be Joy In Things That Ended.

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.

A Tree Is Such A Rich Metaphor In A Million Beautiful Ways. You Can Consider A Tree Growing And Consider Its Connectedness To All Things Above And Under The Ground.

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.

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

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

She Spilled Rice On My Knee, And She Smiled. I Wanted Her To Spill A Thousand Things On Me, Lava, Acid, Bricks, Anything, And Smile Each Time

So Far, She’d Been Her Usual Lame Self: Solitary And Routine-loving, Carefully Avoiding Any Path That Might Lead To Spontaneous Human Interaction. Lena Kaligaris

You Should Find Him Because He Loves You.

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

I'm Afraid Of Time... I Mean, I'm Afraid Of Not Having Enough Time. Not Enough Time To Understand People, How They Really Are, Or To Be Understood Myself. I'm Afraid Of The Quick Judgements Or Mistakes Everybody Makes. You Can't Fix Them Without Time. I'm Afraid Of Seeing Snapshots, Not Movies.

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

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'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.

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

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.

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.

You Hold On To Old Experiences: Injuries, Injustices, And Great Love Affairs, Too. And You Hold Them In Your Joints And Your Organs, And Wear Them On Your Skin.

I Mean Putting Yourself Out There In The Way Of Overwhelming Happiness And Knowing You're Also Putting Yourself In The Way Of Terrible Harm. I'm Scared To Be This Happy. I'm Scared To Be This Extreme.

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.

I Was Supposed To Write A Romantic Comedy, But My Characters Broke Up.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Developing Characters Is A Strange Thing. In The Beginning They Are Abstract And I Wonder How To Move On From There.

Tibby's Wish Would Be To Hold On To The Idea Of Love Even In The Face Of Darkest Doubt. Because That Was The Way In Which She Failed. Not Once, But Again And Again.

There Were Those Emotions Down There, And Though She Couldn't Quite Feel Them, They Were Strong And She Feared Them. It Was Like Watching A Thunderhead From High Up In A Plane, And Though You Weren't Under It, You Knew How It Would Feel If You Were. You Knew You'd Have To Land Eventually.

Besides Being Asked Why I Write About Young Characters, I Am Often Asked How I Write About Young Characters. How Do I Throw Myself Across The Chasm Of Full Adulthood To Relive That Period? I Guess I Don’t, Really. 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.

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.

Luck Never Gives; It Lends.

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

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

Falling In Love

Wear Them, They Will Make You Brave.

Maybe You Think You’ll Be Entitled To More Happiness Later By Forgoing All Of It Now, But It Doesn’t Work That Way. Happiness Takes As Much Practice As Unhappiness Does. It’s By Living That You Live More. By Waiting You Wait More. Every Waiting Day Makes Your Life A Little Less. Every Lonely Day Makes You A Little Smaller. Every Day You Put Off Your Life Makes You Less Capable Of Living It.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

She Had Willed Her Heart To Stay Small And Contained, But It Wouldn’t Be. Oh, Well.

When She Is Happy, She Can't Stop Talking, When She Is Sad She Doesn't Say A Word.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

He Was The Strangest Of Strangers In That He Was Also Her Oldest Friend.

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.

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

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.

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

People Said Things They Didn't Mean All The Time. Everybody Else In The World Seemed Able To Factor It In. But Not Lena. Why Did She Believe The Things People Said? Why Did She Cling To Them So Literally? Why Did She Think She Knew People When She Clearly Didn't? Why Did She Imagine That The World Didn't Change, When It Did? Maybe She Didn't Change. She Believed What People Said And She Stayed The Same." (lena, 211)

She Got Under The Covers And Put Her Arms Around The Bag. She Could Smell Tibby. It Used To Be She Couldn't Smell Tibby's Smell In The Way You Couldn't Smell Your Own; It Was Too Familiar. But Tonight She Could. This Was Some Living Part Of Tibby Still Here And She Held On To It. There Was More Of Tibby With Her Here And Now Than In What She Had Seen In The Cold Basement Room That Day.

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

Try, Reach, Want, And You May Fall. But Even If You Do, You Might Be Okay Anyway. If You Don't Try, You Save Nothing, Because You Might As Well Be Dead.

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

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times And I Still Have Nothing To Show For It. I Always Search For Her ; I Always Remember Her. I Carry The Hope That Someday She Will Remember Me.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Forgive And Forget

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.

He Just Wanted To Look At Her And Know Her Life Was Marching Along Under The Same Arch Of Time And Space As He Is.

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

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.

I Knew Her Hair And Her Coloring And Her Shapes Would Be Different Next Time, But The Way She Wore Her Body Would Keep On.

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

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

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.

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

It Was Like A Dream You Might Have After Death In Which Lost People Came Back To Life, Your Friends Loved You Again No Matter What You Had Done, And Your Failures Were Unaccountably Forgiven.

Hey," He Said. "it's Someday." He Said The Last Word In Greek.

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.

She'd Loved Him As Much As He'd Let Her. More Than He'd Let Her.

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

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

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

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.

How Could You Cleanse Yourself If You Couldn’t Forget?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

Everyone Is Fragile. Everything Beautiful Is Fragile

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.

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

Particularly Beautiful People Were Like Particularly Funny-looking People, Though. Once You Know Them You Mostly Forgot About It.

Beautiful People

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World. The Kind Who Divide The World Into Two Kinds Of People And Those Who Don't.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

How Terrible Would It Be To Just Wait There Pathetically Alone For Him Never To Show Up?" Eudoxia's Expression Grew More Serious. "that's What You're Doing Anyway, My Dear.

It Wasn't Just That Lucy Wanted To Help Him. She Wasn't As Selfless As That. She Was Madly Attracted To Him. She Was Attracted To All Of The Normal Things And The Weird Things, Too, Like The Back Of His Neck And His Thumbs On The Edge Of His Desk And The Way His Hair Stuck Out On One Side Like A Little Wing Over His Ear. She Caught His Smell Once, And It Made Her Dizzy. She Couldn't Fall Asleep That Night.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

First Impression

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

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.

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

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

She Felt Like Parts Of Her Soul Were Missing, Had Left Her Body Long Ago. It Had Happened Not In Greece Three Months Ago, But Long Before That. It Was In Greece That She'd Realized Those Parts Had Left Her And Were Not Coming Back.

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

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

She Never Showed Girly Weaknesses Like Cellulite Or Crushes. She Never Lingered On Injustices Committed Against Her.

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

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.

What Can I Say? I'm Obsessed. And As We All Know Obsessed Girls Can't Be Held Responsible For Our Actions.

Bridget's Anger Evaporated And The Sadness Came Back. The Anger Was Easier. She Owned And Contolled It, Whereas The Sadness Owned Her.

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

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?

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

You'll Turn Out Ordinary If You're Not Careful.

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.

You Are Not Going To Die, I Know I Said I'd Let You, But I Can't.

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.

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

I Allowed Myself To Suffer How Jarringly Destructive The Present Feels And How Fragile The Past.

She Liked The Life She Had. She Loved Habits. She Craved A Day With Nothing In It, A Long, Quiet Stretch Of Hours In The Studio.

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.

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Martin Feldstein

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