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

-Ann Brashares

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I Was Supposed To

Ann Brashares

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

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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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

First Impression

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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

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

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

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

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.

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.

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

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

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 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.

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.

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

You Should Find Him Because He Loves You.

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

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.

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.

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

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

He Could Lose Himself In Her Forever, He Thought.

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Everyone Is Fragile. Everything Beautiful Is Fragile

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

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

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.

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.

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.

Honesty Was A Tough Customer... Once You Started Allowing Yourself Some Honesty, It Couldn't Easily Be Contained Or Limited To One Part Of Your Life. It Was Like Poison Ivy Or A Bossy Houseguest. Once It Was There, You Couldn't Tell It What To Do. You Had To Really Fight To Keep It From Taking Over.

You Have Been With Me From The Very First Life. You Are My First Memory Every Time, The Single Thread In All Of My Lives. It`s You Who Makes Me A Person.

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

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

Putting Yourself Out There

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Beautiful People

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Carry Your Past With You Even If You Don't Remember Any Of It.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Forgive And Forget

Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

Maybe They Would Look At Each Other And Feel Some Odd Yearning, But Neither Of Them Would Know Why. They Would Want To Stop, But They Would Be Embarrassed, And Neither Would Know What To Say. They Would Go Their Separate Ways. Who Knew? Maybe That Happened Every Day To People Who'd Once Loved Each Other.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Today Is The Tomorrow We Worried About Yesterday.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

No Matter How Far Back You Cut A Willow Tree, It Will Never Really Die.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

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.

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

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Just Have To Let People Love You In The Way They Can

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth It.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

But It Was Smell That Carried Memory.

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

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

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