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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.

-Ann Brashares

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During Intermission She Peeked

Ann Brashares

...

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.

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Surround Yourself

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.

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

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

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

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

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Grief Was Like A Newborn, And The First Three Months Were Hard As Hell, But By Six Months You'd Recognized Defeat, Shifted Your Life Around, And Made Room For It.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

I Did Love Her. I've Loved Her From The First Time I Saw Her.

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.

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.

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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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

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

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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.

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.

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

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

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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

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This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

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

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She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

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

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.

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

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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.

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What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

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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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Love The Idea Of Fictional Worlds Kind Of All Cohering In Some Way.

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

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

But Like Everything Else, Love Changed.

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

All I Could Think To Do Was Love Her. That's All A Person Can Do.

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

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 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.

Today Is The Tomorrow We Worried About Yesterday.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Alice Suspected Paul Couldn’t Really Picture His Father, Just Like She Couldn’t Picture Paul When He Was Away. Maybe That Was The Case With People You Wanted More Than Was Good For You.

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.

Riley Was Quiet For A Minute. She Gathered Her Blanket All Around Her. "paul Always Loved You, Alice. He Knows I Know That. I Know He Loves Me, Too. But It's Different." Alice Opened Her Mouth, But Nothing Came Out At First. "he Loved Me Once. But I Think That Part Is Over," She Said Slowly. "no, It's Not. It Hasn't Even Begun." Riley Took Alice's Bare Foot In Her Hand And Squeezed It. "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."

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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

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

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.

What You Leave Behind Is The People You Loved. You Leave Yourself In Them.

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

She Hadn't Chosen The Brave Life. She'd Chosen The Small, Fearful One.

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

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

One Must Have A Good Memory To Keep The Promises One Has Made.

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.

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.

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

Wear Them, They Will Make You Brave.

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

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

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.

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.

You Should Find Him Because He Loves You.

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

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.

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

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

It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth 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

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

Beautiful People

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

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.

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

Forgive And Forget

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

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.

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.

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

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

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

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 Could Lose Himself In Her Forever, He Thought.

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

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.

The Path Of Your Life Can Change In An Instant.

Life Can Change In An Instant

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I Don't Have The Life Of A Famous Person. But I Do Feel Like I've Been Able To Connect With A Lot Of People.

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

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

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

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

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

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 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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Everyone Is Fragile. Everything Beautiful Is Fragile

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

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

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James A. Michener

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