Gayle Forman

“Suddenly, it's all too much. Bryn and the bump watch. Vanessa with my high school yearbook. The idea that nothing's sacred. Everything's fodder. That my life belongs to anyone but me.”

“Needle and thread flesh and boneSpit and sinew, heartbreak is home.Your suture lines, they sparkle like diamondsBright stars to light my confinement“Stitch,”

“The bow is so old, its horsehair is glueSent to the factory, just like me and like youSo how come they stayed your execution?The audience roars its standing ovation“Dust,”

“I'll be your mess, you be mineThat was the deal that we had signedI bought a hazmat suit to clean up your wasteGas masks, gloves, to keep us safeBut now I'm alone in an empty roomStaring down immaculate doom"Messy”

“First you inspect meThen you dissect meThen you reject meI wait for the dayThat you'll resurrect me"Animate”

“Someone wake me when it's overWhen the evening silence softens goldenJust lay me on bed of doverOh, I need help with this burden"Hush”

“You crossed the water, left me ashore It killed me enough, but you wanted more You blew up the bridge, a mad terrorist Waved from your side, through me a kiss I started to follow but realized too late There was nothing but air underneath my feet" —from the song "Bridge" on the Collateral Damage album”

“The boogeyman sleeps on your side of the badWhispers in my ear :"Better of Dead"Fills my dreams with sirens and lights of regretKisses me gently when i wake up in a sweat"boo!”

“Kaže da se svijet dijeli na ljude koji zamišljaju svoj sprovod i one koji ga ne zamišljaju, te da pametni i umjetnički nastrojeni ljudi spadaju u prvu kategoriju.”

“Ponekad ti donosiš odluke u životu, a ponekad se odluke donesu same.”

“Ali sada shvaćam da je umrijeti lako. Teško je živjeti.”

“Samo mislim da su sprovodi vrlo slični smrti. Možeš imati želje i planove, ali na kraju ipak nemaš kontrolu ni nad čim.”

“We'll tell our secrets to the dark"-Adam"Okay"-Mia"So let's hear another of your irrational fears"-Adam"I'm scared of losing you"-Mia"I said 'irrational' fears. Because that's not gonna happen"-Adam"It still scares me"- Mia”

“There are so many things that demand to be said. Where did you go? Do you ever think about me? You've ruined me. Are you okay? But of course, I can't say any of that.”

“I get it now. I have to make good on my promise. To let her go. To really let her go. To let us both go.”

“And then Adam Wilde shows up at Carnegie Hall on the biggest night of my career, and it felt like more than a coincidence. It felt like a gift. From them. For my first recital ever, they gave me a cello. And for this one, they gave me you.”

“You?' is all I can manage to choke out.'Always me,' she replies softly, bashfully. 'Who else?”

“You know, I thought about that a lot these last couple of years," She says in a choked voice. "About who was there for you. Who held your hand while you grieved for all that you'd lost?”

“But still, I find the need to remind myself of the temporariness of a day, to reassure myself that I got through yesterday, I'll get through today.”

“Barrel of the gun, rounds one two threeShe says I have to pick: choose you, or choose meMetal to the temple, the explosion is deafeningLick the blood that covers meShe’s the last one standing“Roulette”Collateral Damage, Track 11”

“Hate me. Devastate me. Annihilate me. Re-create me. Re-create me. Won't you, won't you won't you re-create me.”

“Are you happy in your misery?Resting peaceful in desolation?It’s the final tie that binds usThe sole source of my consolation"“blue”

“And the voice grows stronger and stronger, and it’s myvoice this time and it’s asking a question: How does sheknow?”

“You don’t share me. You own me.”

“I don’t want to be that person, who just takes things.”

“Standing here, in this quiet house where I can hear the birds chirping out back, I think I’m kind of getting the concept of closure. It’s no big dramatic before-after. It’s more like that melancholy feeling you get at the end of a really good vacation. Something special is ending, and you’re sad, but you can’t be that sad because, hey, it was good while it lasted, and there’ll be other vacations, other good times.”

“Her hands were freezing, just like they always were, so I warmed them, just like I always did.”

“It would’ve been easier to die. It’s not that I want to be dead now. I don’t. I have a lot in my life that I get satisfaction from, that I love. But some days, especially in the beginning, it was so hard. And I couldn’t help but think that it would’ve been so much simpler to go with the rest of them. But you—you asked me to stay. You begged me to stay. You stood over me and you made a promise to me, as sacred as any vow.”

“That’s the thing you never expect about grieving, what a competitionit is.”

“You were so busy trying to be my savior that you left me all alone.”

“You talked to me, but you didn’t. I could see you having these two-sided conversations. The things you wanted to say to me. And the words that actually came out.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to have had her company in my head—the comfort that would’ve brought.”

“I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears.”

“I look at her there in the shadows of the shut-down city, her hair falling onto her face, and I can see her trying to figure out if I’ve lost it. And I have to fight the urge to take her by the shoulders and slam her against a shuttered building until we feel the vibrations ringing through both of us. Because I suddenly want to hear her bones rattle. I want to feel the softness of her flesh give, to hear her gasp as my hip bone jams into her. I want to yank her head back until her neck is exposed. I want to rip my hands through her hair until her breath is labored. I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears. And then I want to take my mouth to hers, to devour her alive, to transmit all the things she can’t understand.”

“It's okay if you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So 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.”

“It's my turn to see you through,' she whispers, coming back to me and wrapping me in her blanket as I lose my shit all over again. She holds me until I recover my Y chromosome.”

“I want you to play me like a cello.”

“If you stay, I'll do whatever you want...But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too...I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay.”

“Love, it never dies. It never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it. Love can make you immortal”

“he kissed me hard. "Promise me. Promise me you'll spend New Year's with me next year," he whispered into my ear.”

“I'm not choosing, but I'm running out of fight.”

“And now I am here, as alone as I've ever been. I am seventeen years old. This is not how it's suppose to be. This is not how my life is suppose to turn out.”

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”

“It's okay,' he tells me. 'If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.' His voice cracks with emotion. He stops, clears his throat, takes a breath, and continues. 'But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So 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.'For the first time since I realized that Teddy was gone, too, I feel something unclench. I feel myself breathe. I know that Gramps can't be that late-inning pinch hitter I'd hoped for. He won't unplug my breathing tube or overdoes me with morphine or anything like that. But this is the first time today that anyone has acknowledged what I have lost. I know that the social worker warned Gran and Gramps not to upset me, but Gramps's recognition, and the permission he just offered me--it feels like a gift.Gramps doesn't leave me. He slumps back into the chair. It's quiet now. So quiet you can almost hear other people's dreams. So quiet that you can almost hear me tell Gramps, 'Thank you.”

“You just work through it. You just hang in there.”

“I'm not sure this is a world I belong in anymore. I'm not sure that I want to wake up.”

“I have a feeling that once you live through something like this, you become a little bit invincible.”

“Adam is crying and somewhere inside of me I am crying, too, because I'm feeling things at last. I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill.”

“Losing me will hurt; it will be the kind of pain that won't feel real at first, and when it does, it will take her breath away.”

“It's a good thing Kerry's dead, because that funeral would've sent him over the edge," Henry said.”