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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.

-Ann Brashares

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Tibby Sat On The

Ann Brashares

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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.

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

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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.

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

She 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.

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.

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.

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

Getting What You Want

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Love Yourself And Your Friends Unconditionally .

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

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.

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

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

But Like Everything Else, Love Changed.

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

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

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

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

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.

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."

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

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

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You Forget Your Victories, But You Remember The Losses.

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

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

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

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She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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Everyone Is Fragile. Everything Beautiful Is Fragile

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

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.

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

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

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

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Everything Good Requires Sacrifices.

Today Is The Tomorrow We Worried About Yesterday.

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

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.

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

She 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

But It Was Smell That Carried Memory.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

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

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

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

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

Falling In Love

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

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

Wear Them, They Will Make You Brave.

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.

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

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

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

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

First Impression

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Beautiful People

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Norman Ralph Augustine

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