Gabrielle Zevin

“Did you know that there are over three hundred words for love in canine?”

“It was such a sweet, sad song with such sweet, sad lyrics. Old-fashioned a little, but also timeless.”

“You know this girl.Her hair is neither long nor short nor light nor dark. She parts it precisely in the middle.She sits precisely in the middle of the classroom, and when she used to ride the school bus, she sat precisely in the middle of that, too.She joins clubs, but is never the president of them. Sometimes she is the secretary; usually, just a member. When asked, she has been known to paints sets for the school play.She always has a date to the dance, but is never anyone’s first choice. In point of fact, she’s nobody’s first choice for anything. Her best friend became her best friend when another girl moved away.She has a group of girls she eats lunch with every day, but God, how they bore her. Sometimes, when she can’t stand it anymore, she eats in the library instead. Truth be told, she prefers books to people, and the librarian always seems happy to see her.She knows there are other people who have it worse—she isn’t poor or ugly or friendless or teased. Of course, she’s also aware that the reason no one teases is because no one ever notices her.This isn’t to say she doesn’t have qualities.She is pretty, maybe, if anyone would bother to look. And she gets good enough grades. And she doesn’t drink and drive. And she says NO to drugs. And she is always where she says she will be. And she calls when she’s going to be late. And she feels a little, just a little, dead inside.She thinks, You think you know me, but you don’t.She thinks, None of you has any idea about all the things in my heart.She thinks, None of you has any idea how really and truly beautiful I am.She thinks, See me. See me. See me.Sometimes she thinks she will scream.Sometimes she imagines sticking her head in an oven.But she doesn’t.She just writes it all down in her journal and waits.She is waiting for someone to see.”

“That Woman is in love with her own grief.”

“Death is a state of mind---many people on Earth spend their entire lives dead.”

“Dance with me,' Win said. 'I know I'm probably making a fool of myself. You're probably thinking, how many times do I have to reject this guy? Can't he take a hint?'I shook my head.'But somehow I don't even care. I see you in your red dress, standing by the punch table, and something in me wants to keep trying. I think, she is a person worth knowing.”

“I'm allergic to sad memories. It's the worst.”

“The theme of the dance was "Great Romances," or some such nonsense. There were projections of supposedly great couples from the past on the walls of the gym. Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Hermione and Ron, Bonnie and Clyde, etc.”

“It's like when you take a trip with someone you don't know very well. Sometimes, you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realize all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travelers.”

“There's the tree with the branches that everyone sees, and then there's the upside-down root tree, growing the opposite way. So Earth is the branches, growing in opposing but perfect symmetry. The branches don't think much about the roots, and maybe the roots don't think much about the branches, but all the time, they're connected by the trunk, you know?”

“I wish I could tell you to always follow your heart, but I think it is bad advice. You have a heart, yes, it is true, but also a brain and also a soul. I've come to believe that we love with our brains as much as our hearts. Real Love is not just instinct, but intent...... From year to year, you may not always be the same Jane. This is perfectly normal. A Jane is many Janes in a lifetime.”

“Liz, I like you very much," he says. "Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!"Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plan "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the needs to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.'" "O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her."Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?”

“Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together.”

“I shouldn't have done that," I said.That was when I kissed him again.May God forgive me for this and all these things I've done.”

“Violence should not always beget more violence.”

“Eye contact made people think you were being truthful even if you weren't.”

“My beautiful Win. I wanted to kiss him on every last broken place, but his mother and my lawyer were there. So, instead I started to cry.”

“Despite what I said before, it had not been a fear of infecting other people or poor health that had stopped me from going, but vanity. It was a good lesson.”

“He told me that love was the only thing that really mattered in the world.”

“He kissed me, though not in a sexy way. Gentle. Tender.”

“My brain said no.But my heart!”

“Maybe if I'd been braver in that moment, I would have cried.”

“Let's stay young forever. Young, stupid, and pretty. Sounds like a plan, don't you think?”

“I told him I didn't want to have sex until I got married. Without missing a beat, he nodded and said, "So let's get married.”

“Daddy once said, "If you don't know what you believe, Annie, you'll be a lost soul.”

“I know you did, lass. You're the toughest girl I know.""'Lass'? Where did that come from?""I don't know. I just felt the urge to call you that.”

“Should have. Would have. Could have. Didn't.”

“Win walked over to me. He held out his palm. In the middle of it was a single black sequin from the dress Scarlet had lent me. "You lost this," he said.I giggled, slightly embarrassed to be leaving bits of myself behind. "I'm shedding.”

“Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.”

“His eyes were blazing and I swear I could smell the testosterone coming off him.”

“It's sad when you think about it, but also kind of beautiful.”

“It wasn't even 8:00 yet. Pretty early for such deep thoughts.”

“Life used to move much more quickly when I was a girl. We needed to abbreviate just to keep up.”

“You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned-the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and Pythagorean Theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you'll forget those, too. You forget your junior class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations-even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else.”

“A life isn't measured in hours and minutes. It's the quality, not the length.”

“Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.”

“Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it.Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens,that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both.”

“Why do two people fall in love? It's a mystery.”

“Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down the road and someday, you do not now when, you will make a wrong tun. At the end of the road, when you're least expecting it, he (or indeed she) will be there.”

“Since i couldn't remember the "real" first time i'd lost my virginity, this would have become my de facto first time. I wanted a better story then: I did it with this boy who i wasn't very into and who had mysterious Gaterade breath; in his room decorated with sports equipment; at least he was nice enough to provide condoms and get his ancient, horny dog to leave us along.”

“Hi there," squeaked a precocious little voice, "you are speaking to Chloe Fusakawa, and I have just learned how to answer the phone.”

“Saying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know.”

“I was just thinking... isn't it lucky that we decided to become co-editors? If one takes a blow to the head, the other can fill in. If the other's lung spontaneoulsy collapses, the one can fill in. It's a perfect system once you think about it."~Will Landsman”

“I met a travler from an ancient land.”

“And I was crying for gravity. It had sent me down the stairs, and I'd thought that meant something, but maybe it was just the direction that all things tend to flow.”

“What are you reading?" Owen asks."Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died.""You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.”

“No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.”

“And when she dreams, she dreams of a girl who was lost at sea but one day found the shore.”

“I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.”

“In my humble opinion, love is when a person believes that he, she or it can't live without some other he, she or it...I said believes. No one actually needs another person or another person's live to survive. Love, Lizzie, is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.”