Katie Kacvinsky

“She tells me life is a story. We can make it a Harlequin romance, a mistery, a memoir. We can make it pamphlet-size or an ongoing series."I want mine to be exceptional", she says.”

“The water stretched out into the distance until it held hands with the sky.”

“I realized how hard it that must have been, how much hurt when you know the only way to help someone is to give him distance. So I let him go.”

“So why sit around wasting time dwelling on what could have gone wrong? Shouldn't we be celebrating all the things that went right?”

“If you don't consider failing, you won't.”

“Maybe we're always changing.""Maybe we're always performing.""Then who are we really?" I wondered. "At the end of the day, with the lights off, all alone, which of those personalities that we take on and off are real?”

“Things never happen the way you plan. Take it a second at a time. Stay in the moment. It's the only way to control it. Your thoughts can paralyze you. They make you second-guess and that's when you lose. You mentally beat yourself. Believe you can handle anything. Look at something that's bigger than you and take it all in, the enormousness of it. Drown in it. Then take a step back. Comparmentalize it. Remember, anything's attainable. And take every risk you can, as long as you trust yourself.”

“Hope works like that. It hinds and blends in, only to pop out when you least expect it. It's always a surprise, something you step on, trip over, or stumble on by accident. It hides in the divots of our lives. in the loneliest valleys. It's like a child, always playing hide and seek to keep our lives unpredictable. Just when we're about to give up, hope turns on, like light, to guide out way.”

“relationships can be built only if you invest time in people”

“i hated how my parents would talk about me like i wasnt watching.”

“lifes to short to say maybe.”

“You should never have to rely on another person to make you feel whole. That life is dangerous.”

“Change happens slowly. And it only happens one person at a time, one day at a time.”

“Three weeks feels like three years when you spend all your time missing someone.”

“I had everything I wanted in my hand. If I had to choose my eternity, I'd choose this moment, right now, with him. Because there's no place else I'd rather be.”

“The way fire moves, it consumes you. It's so beautiful you want to touch it but you know you can't. I think that's part of its draw.”

“Because that's the point, nothing is ever permanent. We're just being brainwashed to think there isn't more out there. Here's the truth: your situation is never permanent. It's what you make it. Life isn't solid, it's fluid. It changes. You say we're stuck but that's a hopeless way to look at it. It's like saying we should give up.”

“Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you have to start believing you know what's best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.”

“Trust comes by earning it, not expecting it.”

“So many people are full of talk, Maddie. But nothing happens unless someone steps up and takes action.”

“Life passes you by when you stand around talking about it.”

“Even small voices can ripple change along.”

“I think labeling someone's intelligence with a letter grade isn't a sign of their ability.”

“Sometimes, online, I feel like we're not really people. We're more like characters." I felt him studying me while I said this. "It's like living inside a reality show all the time. We edit out the scenes so we can appear a certain way. It makes me wonder if I really know anybody.”

“Sometimes you need to get lost in order to discover anything.”

“The idea that one thing that will define you, forever, is pretty amazing," I said. "It makes you choose it more carefully.”

“I heard once that the things you own define you and I didn't want to be seen that way.”

“Or maybe, in my gut, I felt like I was missing out on something. I knew there was more to life than a pixelated curtain. There was a wide, expansive world all around me and I was confined to live inside such a narrow one. And I wanted to break free.”

“Let's just say there's only so much of life that can be taught by pushing a bunch of buttons and looking at a screen.”

“It's easy to delete the truth when you live behind your own permanent censor.”

“If you can't acclimate, you disintegrate.”

“When we sat down in the plane, Clare took something out of her pocket and handed it to me. It looked like a tube of lipstick.I frowned at her. 'Is this really the time to swap make-up?' I asked.She grinned. 'It's a hand taser. My parents make me carry one.' She took the cap off and pointed to the metal edge. 'If someone attacks you, you press the tip against their skin and it shoots out a charge.'I looked down at it. 'Does it last long?'She shook her head. 'It's pretty harmless. Noah and Pat used to play taser tag around the house when I was growing up.”

“I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say they know what's best. But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway. Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you have to start believing that you know what's best. Or...you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.”

“Obsessing over a boy is like throwing precious time into the garbage, and all I have to show for it is chewed-off fingernails, self-doubt, and emotional distress.”

“You were brought up to think love and family are about protection. Like you need to hold people close in order to care about them. But that's just living inside a bubble. It's control. I was brought up to think love is trusting people enough to let them go.”

“Maybe [the man who talks to himself] is normal and we're the crazy ones. Maybe everyone should talk to themselves. Maybe we're all just afraid of what we would say.”

“Closure. That's probably the most unrealistic word in the English vocabulary. It's up there with heartbreak, pain, loss, and abandonment, all these things that you're supposed to get over and mend and heal but really, do you ever get over those moments?”

“Love is more like an accident than a plan. It's more of a question than an answer.”

“You let me be who I am. So many people ask me why I need to take pictures all the time. Why I'm staring at something they can't see. It's like I have to apologize for having eyes. But you've never rushed me. I'm at my best around you. You're my nova. You light me up.”

“There are three things I look for in a person. And you're the only person I've met in the world that has all of them.”

“That's how you make me feel tonight. You. Crush. Me. Under your magnificent light show.”

“Love always finds you, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. It knows your hiding places. It's smarter than you'll ever be.”

“A single kiss can be one of the craziest things you ever do.”

“If life came with an audience, mine would be laughing hysterically right now.”

“But if love were convenient there wouldn't be millions of songs and movies and books obsessing over it, or therapists and doctors consoling all the people falling in and out of it.”

“Because from my personal experience, Dylan, falling in love with you is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. It's fun as hell, a rush of adrenaline, until the inevitable crash comes where you leave and my heart splatters all over the ground.”

“It appears time has two different effects on the heart," I say, still looking at the leaves. "It either makes it swell with love or shrivel with bitterness.”

“Next time you take directions from your heart, plan on getting lost.”

“The more people I meet, the more I'm realizing how rare it is to find someone who lets you be yourself. Who never tries to hold you back, but watches you ride out the wave of intensity and see where it takes you.”

“You need to fall apart once in a while before you understand how you best fit together.”