Gayle Forman

“Who says I breathe music? Who says I even breathe?”

“Her eyes flutter up to meet mine.“Are you hungry?”she asks.Am I ever.”

“These days, you’ve gotta milk adollar out of every dime.”

“Sleep would be so welcome.A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams.”

“Even going to jail would be easy compared to losing you.”

“And if I'm not forgiven, then at least I'm understood.”

“It was selfish what I asked her to do, even if it wound up being the most unselfish thing I've ever done.”

“All night long if you want. We'll tell our secrets to the dark.”

“I like French fries," I say. I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie.”

“The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else. This is our new vow.”

“We stand there for a moment, staring at each other, savoring it. And then all at once, we slam together. Mia's legs are off the ground, wrapped around my waist, her hands dipping in my hair, my hands tangled in hers. And our lips. There isn't enough skin, enough spit, enough time, for the lost years that our lips are trying to make up for as they find each other. We kiss. The electric current switches to high. The lights throughout all of Brooklyn must be surging.”

“I'm pretty sure that when babies are born in Oregon, they leave the hospital with birth certificates - and teeny-tiny sleeping bags. Everyone in the state camps. The hippies and the rednecks. The hunters and the tree huggers. Rich people. Poor people. Even rock musicians. Especially rock musicians. Our band had perfected the art of punk-rock camping, throwing a bunch of crap into the van with, like, an hour's notice and just driving out into the mountains, where we'd drink beer, burn food, jam on our instruments around the campfire, and sack out under the open sky. Sometimes, on tour, back in the early hardscrabble days, we'd even camp as an alternative to crashing in another crowded, roach-infested rock 'n' roll house. I don't know if it's because no matter where you live, the wilderness is never that far off, but it just seemed like everyone in Oregon camped.”

“Porque de pronto, quiero escuchar sus huesos crujir. Quiero sentir la suavidad que ofrece su carne, escuchar su grito de asombro mientras el hueso de mi cadera se estrella contra ella. Quiero tirar su cabeza hacia atrás hasta que su cuello está expuesto. Quiero rasgar mis manos por su cabello hasta que su respiración sea entrecortada. Quiero hacerla llorar y lamer sus lágrimas. Y luego quiero llevar mi boca a la de ella, devorarla en vida....”

“Nuestros labios… No había suficiente piel, suficiente saliva, suficiente tiempo, nuestros labios estaban tratando de compensar todos estos años perdidos. Nos besamos. Se encendieron los interruptores de alta tensión.”

“entonces Adam Wilde aparece en Carnegie Hall en la noche más grande de mi carrera, y se sintió como más que una coincidencia. Se sintió como un regalo. De ellos. Para mi primer recital, me dieron un violonchelo. Y para éste, me dieron tu presencia. -Mia”

“(...) creo que estoy empezando a entender el concepto de terminar. No es un gran dramático antes y después. Es más como una melancólica sensación de que estás llegando al fin de unas vacaciones realmente buenas. Algo especial está terminando, y estás triste, pero no puede estar triste porque, oye, fue bueno mientras duró, y habrá otras vacaciones, otros buenos momentos.”

“Ahora lo sé. Me gustaría hacer esa promesa mil veces y perderme mil veces de haberla escuchado tocar ayer por la noche o para verla en el sol de la mañana. O incluso sin eso. Sólo para saber que ella está en algún lugar. Viva.”

“Tengo que cumplir mi promesa. La promesa de dejarla ir. De realmente dejarla ir. Para que podamos seguir los dos.-Adam”

“¿Has escuchado hablar de un perro que gastó su vida persiguiendo carros y cuando finalmente atrapó a uno… no tenía idea que hacer con él?Soy ese perro. -Adam”

“Esta noche no la besaré. O tocaré. O la veré de cerca.Esta noche escucharé. Y eso será suficiente”

“All relationships are tough. Just like with music, sometimes you have harmony and other times you have cacophony.”

“I know that all the magic kisses in the world probably couldn't have helped him today. But I would do anything to have been able to give him one.”

“I wasn't totally immune to the charms of the opposite sex, but I wasn't one of those romantic, swoony girls who had pink fluffy daydreams about falling in love.”

“I understood all that in my head, but I still didn‟t believe it in my heart.”

“If I stay. If I live. It's up to me.”

“And I bet she'll be a stronger person because of what she's lost today. I have a feeling that once you live through something like this, you become a little bit invincible.”

“In the calculus of feelings, you never really know how one person's absence will affect you more than another's.”

“I’ve blamed her for all of this, for leaving, for ruining me. And maybe that was the seed of it, but from that one little seed grew this tumor of a flowering plant. And I’m the one who nurtures it. I water it. I care for it.I nibble from its poison berries. I let it wrap around my neck, choking the air right out of me. I’ve done that. All by myself. All to myself.”

“A day might be just twenty-four hours but sometimes getting through just one seems as impossible as scaling Everest.”

“It's ok if you want to stop fighting.”

“Except even at the start, when we were in that can't-get-enough-of-you-phase, there was like some invisible wall between us. At first I tried to take it down, but it took so much effort to even make cracks. And then I got tired of trying. Then I justified it. This was just how adult relationships were, how love felt once you had a few battle scars.”

“I know what I did to you was so wrong, but at the time it also felt so necessary to my survival. I don't know if those two things can both be true, but that's how it was.”

“A thousand suns rise from my chest.”

“Fake it till you make it actually worked.”

“Girlfriend is such a stupid word. I couldn't stand calling her that. So, we had to get married, so I could call her 'wife.”

“People believe what they want to believe.”

“Adam lay perfectly still, little groans escaping from his lips. I looked at the bow, looked at my hands, looked at Adam's face and felt this surge of love, lust, and an unfamiliar feeling of power.”

“I needed to hate someone and you’re the one I love the most, so it fell on you.”

“I've become to realize there's a world of difference between knowing something happened, even knowing why it happened, and believing it.”

“Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it's the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open.”

“But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I’ll be in love with tomorrow.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It’s okay if you have to leave us. It’s okay if you want to stop fighting.”

“You can have your wishes, your plans, but at the end of the day, it's out of your control.”

“My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.”

“Waiting for Vengeance'Well, what is this?What am I coming to?And beyond that, what am I gonna do?Now there’s blanknessWhere once your eyes held the lightBut that was so long agoThat was last nightWell, what was that?What’s that sound that I hear?It’s just my lifetimeIts whistling past my earAnd when I look backEverything seems smaller than lifeThe way it’s been for so longSince last nightNow I’m leavingAny moment I’ll be goneI think you’ll noticeI think you’ll wonder what went wrongI’m not choosingBut I’m running out of fightAnd this was decided so long agoIt was last night”

“Ella me dio un beso de despedida. Ella me dijo que me amaba más que a su propia vida. Luego pasó a través de seguridad. Ella nunca volvió.”

“...the world feels so big when you're out in the wide open. It's like you don't have a place in it when you don't have a home.""Your place is right here," I whispered, laying down and hugging her close.”

“I know that unlike that night, tonight I won't kiss her. Or touch her. Or even see her up close.Tonight, I'll listen. And that'll be enough.”

“But I'd do it again. I know that now. I'd make that promise a thousand times over and lose her a thousand times over to have heard her play last night or to see her in the morning sunlight. Or even without that. Just to know that she's somewhere out there. Alive.”

“I know. So, I was angry with you. I didn't know why. I was angry with the world. I did know why. I hated all my therapists for being useless. I was this little ball of self-destructive fury, and none of them could do anything but tell me that I was a little ball of self-destructive fury. [...] I knew I was angry. Tell me what to do with that anger, please.”