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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.

-Ann Brashares

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The Bottom Had Arrived.

Ann Brashares

...

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.

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

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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

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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You Forget Your Victories, But You Remember The Losses.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

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

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?

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What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

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

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

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Forgive And Forget

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

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

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

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.

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

Beautiful People

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

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

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.

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

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

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

Putting Yourself Out There

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

But It Was Smell That Carried Memory.

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.

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.

The Path Of Your Life Can Change In An Instant.

Life Can Change In An Instant

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

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.

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