Deb Caletti

“Holy Christ fate’s got a fucking sick sense of humor ” he chuckled.”

“Cars are all jammed up all along the road and a light turns red and someone honks. In every one of those cars there is a story or a hundred stories. For every light on in al of those huge city buildings there is a story. No one knows what I am about to face and no one knows my story and neither do I right then.”

“It was all the things you could never understand and could never possess that made you ache.”

“The way two people can end up in the same place, find each other in a crowd, and change their lives and the lives of the people around them forever... It makes you believe in fate. And fate gives love some authority. Like it's been stamped with approval from above, if you believe in above. A godly green light. Some destined significance.”

“Another person is, at the heart of it, unknowable. And if you cannot know a person enough to always guess what they’re capable of, you certainly cannot know them enough to hold them in your hands, to control their behavior, to fight, manipulate, cajole or nurse or soothe them into doing what they should or shouldn’t.People will do what they will do. The trick is admitting your own helplessness about that little fact.”

“You could care enough to keep a secret, but you could care enough to tell one, too.”

“Fear was the biggest bullshitter, he’d said. But sometimes, too, fear told the truth.”

“We had lain together, skin on skin, been as close as two people could, and he was a stranger. He was that someone who you are afraid of as a child, stranger. They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew.”

“But my apology was a thousand apologies.”

“I thought I might cry, the way you do when someone gives you some kindness when you most need it but when it seems the most surprising thing.”

“It’s a simple truth that a secret is something you’re ashamed of.”

“It wasn’t fair for a person to shove himself at you again and again when you wanted them gone. We should have the right to have someone leave when we want, to only allow those in who we want in. But the truth is, people can force their way into your life whenever they choose. If they want to remind you forevermore that they exist, they will. They can reappear in a card or a call or a “chance” meeting, they can remember your birthday or the day you met with some innocuous small note. No matter how little they matter in your new life, they can insist on being seen and recognized and remembered.”

“I don’t know why we insist on pain when pain is so often easy to eliminate. It’s funny the ways we try to punish ourselves when we feel we’ve committed some crime.”

“What’s that about? Love must be more about power than we think, if even in its most intimate moment of expression we think about not being the one who risks the most.”

“You take care of the people you love, but it’s true, too, that you take care of the things you own.”

“Accents are funny in that they have this odd draw for us, yet we forget we have one, too. No one is without an accent, but the one you’ve got seems like oatmeal to their caviar.”

“A drop of poison on that gathering snow. That moment in the fairy tale when we know what just happened but the princess doesn’t.”

“This is not to say I don’t feel my own grief, which can hit powerfully at unexpected times. It’s just that the telling does not automatically bring on my own upset, as people assume. I deal more with their reaction than they do with mine, and so you have to choose your timing.”

“Empathy took the edge off, and the truth is, we need our edge. Our edge is trying to speak to us, and we are too, too good at shutting it up.”

“But, dear God, don't listen to me. I'm an old lady in the middle of nowhere without a real toilet.”

“Always. Stay always.Always.”

“Funny the only two times we use the phrase "seeing someone" are when we are referring to being in a a relationship or getting psychological help.”

“What is uneasy when you are awake in the daylight is terror in the dark honesty of your dreams.”

“Breaking up could sit in front of you for a while. It was a ring of fire you had to at last decide to run through. You finally got tired of standing there, looking at it, feeling the heat, tired enough to finally just let go. Getting burned at last seemed better than the waiting to get burned.”

“Hurt is a weapon. Better weapon than most because it doesn't look like one.”

“Look right at it. Know you can." Dad said. "Look right at that fear. Fear is the biggest bullshitter.”

“At the root of every large struggle in life is the need to be honest about something that we do not feel we can be honest about. We lie to ourselves or other people because the truth might require action on our part, and action requires courage. We say we “don’t know” what is wrong, when we do know what is wrong; we just wish we didn’t.Art lets us tell the truth, but even art can be something to hide behind.”

“The favorite game of temperamental people is Try to Guess Why I’m Ticked Off. (Contestant number one, Why do YOU think he’s pissed off? Why, I’m not sure, Bob, but I’m going to go with ‘Because I Left the Faucet Dripping.’ BEEP. I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. The correct answer is: ‘Because You Happen to Exist.’)”

“But then there are the van Goghs and Hemingways and Mozarts, those who feel a hunger so deep, so far down, that greatness lies there too, nestled somewhere within it. Those who get their inner voice and direction from the cool mysterious insides of the moon, and not from the earth like the rest of us.”

“One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.”

“It's shocking the things we call love.”

“You can want one thing and have a secret wish for its opposite.”

“I've wished for things and never really had the chance...It's time to stop dreaming and do something about it. You've got to know what you want, then...go.”

“My subconscious speaks in a foreign language.”

“Sometimes you're sure dogs have some secret, superior intelligence, and other times you know they're only their simple, goofy selves.”

“So I put up with bad behavior in the name of loving the way I thought you were supposed to love.”

“I had always had a little problem looking out for myself in love. I was afraid people would leave me. So I sort of clung and did everything possible to keep someone around. I didn't have a hard talk with myself about who I was keeping around. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I clung to people like human life preservers. I thought i'd die if someone left me. Its ironic because now I'm the one who's leaving.”

“Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".”

“But what I wanted back had never really been there. He was a temporary illusion, a mirage of water after walking in the desert. I had made him up. And he could have killed me. You've got to stop the ride sometimes. Stop it and get off.”

“I kept trying to talk myself out of my second thoughts when they were trying to help me. My advice? When it comes to relationships, second thoughts should be promoted.”

“My father said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what's good for you. It's your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You're an idiot if you think it means you've met your soul mate. So I was an idiot.”

“She'd be one of those parents who left a kid behind at a rest stop, driving for miles before she noticed. We'd hear about her on the evening news.”

“Ah. Falling in love is such a magical time." "We just met, Damian. I'm not in love." Damian laughs. "I am going to have you clean the stables today, since you are already so full of shit.”

“Hannah and Kayla are talking without saying anything. Their conversation goes like this: Hannah: Uh-huh. Kayla: It was like, ugh! Hannah: I know. Kayla: Shit. Come on! Hannah: Well, you know, whatever.Kayla: I guess, but still. Hannah: Yeah. Kayla: You know? Hannah: Yeah.”

“…I ignore the message from Jenna, who wants to talk about Kayla and what a bitch she is. I think she actually said "witch" in the voicemail, but if that's what she means, I don't see what a difference the vocabulary makes”

“I've come to the conclusion that it's all about fear- fear that your kid won't come out on top, be a success. Forcing him into these brutal encounters will a) make a dame sure he is a success, and b) all you to see evidence of that success with the added bonus of a cheering crowd. This means that sports are supported with an almost desperate enthusiasm. The football team gets catered dinners before a fame. Honor Society is lucky if it gets a cupcake. Academic success-forget it. That requires too much imagination. There's no scoreboard.”

“No, Mom. I said fine." "It's just your tone." Ah, yes- the tone. The nasty traitor.”

“I didn't walk over and talk to him, though, not then. If I needed the time for a tree branch to become just a tree branch again and the wind to become just the wind, then a boy, most of all, needed some time to be only a boy.”

“They say religion is about love, but you wonder how much of it really is about fear.”

“It was one of those times you feel a sense of loss, even though you didn't have something in the first place. I guess that's what disappointment is- a sense of loss for something you never had.”