Katie Kacvinsky

“If you have confidence, if you believe in yourself, you can go anywhere.”

“So, that's the secret to happiness? Don't tak life seriously?" I ask."No," she says. "Take life seriously. That you have to do. Don't take yourself seriously, that's the key. Let it all go. Don't care for a second what people think of you. In fact, go out of your way to keep them guessing.”

“It’s amazing to think where adventure can lead when you trust your crazy ideas, when you’re bold enough to look at only what lies ahead of you. I don’t want the normal life. I don’t want to go to college because it’s the next practical step, just to join the pack, just to follow a leader. I don’t want to sit inside a room under fluorescent lights and study and read and memorize other people’s ideas about the world. I want to form my own ideas. I want to experience the world with my own eyes. I’m not going to follow my old friends to avoid the effort of making new ones. I don’t want to settle for any job just to get a paycheck, just to pay rent, just to need furniture and cable and more bills and be tied down with routine and monotony. I don’t want to own things because they’ll eventually start to own me. Most importantly, I don’t want to be told who I am or who I should be. I want to find myself—the bits and pieces that are scattered in places and in people waiting to meet me. If I fall down, I’ll learn how to pick myself up again. You need to fall apart once in a while before you understand how you best fit together.”

“I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION—side effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, severe mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to destroy something (preferably something expensive that shatters), uncontrollable tear ducts, stress, a loss of appetite (Cheetos and Dr. Pepper exempt), a bleak and narrow outlook on the future, and an overall hatred of everyone and everything (especially all the happy couples you see strolling hand-in-hand, placed on your path only to exacerbate your isolation and misery). All above reactions will be intensified with the consumption of one or more alcoholic beverages.”

“I always thought love would be easy and slip into place when the moment is right. But, how far do you go for love? How much of your life do you give up for a single person? And how much do you let yourself change? When you stop being yourself, who will you become?”

“Maybe it’s not the doors that open in our lives, but the doors that close that define us. That guide us. Because they force us to move on. Instead of thinking about what we lose, look at what we can gain.”

“Her mom showed her that when life hands you tragedy, you can do two things with it. You can let it kick you down and make you weak and turn you into a victim. Or you can have hope that you’ll get through it and there’s still something amazing to live for.Dylan tells me victims don’t make it very far in life.”

“What do you say when you’re not enough to make someone stay?”

“Because if you’re lucky enough to have people in your life that make you happy, that inspire you, that move you, you need to devour each moment you have together because you never know how many of those moments you have left. These people are sacred.”

“Sleep doesn’t come to people who have a heavy apology resting on their heart. Sleep knows better.”

“Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn’t experience anything. You didn’t take any risks.”

“Lying is manipulation. I prefer to call what I did ‘improvisation in times of desperation.”

“Oh, I just think that a neat house is the sign of a boring person, that's all. And I don't really like to associate with boring people if I can help it.”

“Some­times the more you know, the hard­er it is to en­joy life. It's like you lose cu­rios­ity or some­thing.”

“I wish I could catch the words and reel them back in my mouth to safely store away in my Shut the Hell Up, You Idiot file.”

“Letting go is easy. Anyone can do that. Love is fighting for someone to stay. That's what takes work.”

“...don't be afraid to fall. Your wings will catch you.”

“Most people hold their fantasies out of reach, as if their desires are a mountain they could never summit. They settle for living at the base of the mountain instead. There aren't as many obstacles, or avalanches, or unexpected delays. But they'll never be able to see the view from the top.”

“What kind of parents willingly name their kid Spud? They should be arrested for douchebaggery.”

“I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few.”

“... music can change your mood instantly. It can make memories feel present and any dream seem tangible.”

“I'd rather invest my time collecting memories and friends and love and all the things money can't buy.”

“... I don't want to fit in. That's when no one notices you. You leave a longer impression when you're brave enough to stand out.”

“Sometimes the smallest victories in life are more rewarding than the greatest milestones.”

“When everything comes easily to you, it never challenges you to change.”

“I spent so much time carefully packing up my past. Sealing it shut. Storing it away. Seeing Brandon makes that box fall open and all the memories spill out at my feet.”

“All you need is one safe anchor to keep you grounded when the rest of your life spins out of control.”

“What happens if you lose?" Jeremy pressed."I don't see it as winning or losing. I'm just looking for a middle ground," he [Justin] said. "I get that technology is convenient and has its benefits. We definitely can't live without it. We can't go back to living in caves. But most people are so plugged in, they're not even living in the real world. Our lives aren't grounded by anything. Being too dependent on something makes you a slave to it. And I sure as hell won't worship a digital screen. So I'm looking for a halfway point. A balance. It's not just about ending digital school. It's about having a choice.”

“He walked ahead of me down the hall and I was careful to keep a few steps behind him. I needed the distance. Close human contact was starting to scare me. In the past few weeks, all I'd known around people was pain. When people were face-to-face, tragedy struck. A look felt like a bee sting. It started to seem natural to be separated from people. I craved being alone. No one could hurt me inside my wall screens. They were slowly becoming a comfort, a cushion between me and the harsh world outside. I was stepping out of it less and less.”

“But pain's like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There's no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.”

“In my baggy jeans and messy hair, I know I don't fit into this plastic palace. But I don't want to fit in. That's when no one notices you. You leave a longer impression when you're brave enough to stand out.”

“Live a little," she tells me. "You're never going to experience anything if you wait around for perfect conditions.”

“When your world's become one person, how do you prepare to let her go? How do you get over someone you know you'll never forget?”

“It's amazing how far you're willing to go when someone believes in you”

“Until you realize love's the only thing worth living for in the first place”

“Think about our bodies. We're a chain of veins and organs and tehy're all interconnected. If something isn't going right in one area, the whole system can get out of whack. That's teh way I see the world. We're all connected. I don't see myself as this separate entity. I see things in a much larger scale. Everything I do directly affects another person, all the way down the chain. Every person I help can help another; we're all connected. Change happens one person at a time. And I want to commit my life to seeing that through.”

“If you think too much about the future, about seeing me again, you won't exprience anything. You'll just be a slave to time.”

“Because someday, when your life slows down, you're going to look at all the great things you've done and the people you've touched and you might go down as a hero. But no one would have ever wanted your life. Because you'll be alone.”

“Life should be a risk. It's more than a straight line that you can see clearly from one point to the other. It dips and curves and you never know what's around the bend sometimes until you get there. That scares a lot of people. But that's the beauty of it.”

“I couldn't sleep," she confesses. "Why not?" I ask. She smiles at me. It's this sweet, innocent smile, and it makes my heart stammer. "You didn't kiss me today," she says. "And I wanted you to.”

“If you only focus on the things you leave behind, you'll never go anywhere.”

“Life is too short to waste time on people who don't lift you up, who don't inspire you-they'll eventually drain you.”

“Look around you. The earth wouldn't exist without the sun. Plants would die without rain. We're all meant to lean on something. Or someone.”

“I don’t know much, but this is what I’ve learned. You’ll fall for the last person you ever thought you’d be interested in. That’s the tricky part. You might not even notice her at first. And she usually comes around just when you’ve stopped looking. But if you pay attention, you’ll know it’s her because she’ll stand out from everybody else. She might even scare you. But if you’re lucky enough to meet this girl, be smart enough to realize it and try not to screw it up.”

“I think everyone’s caught up in these narrow-minded worlds and they think their world exists in the center of the universe. Relationships only happen when it’s convenient. You have to walk on eggshells for people because that’s about how strong they are these days. And you can’t confront people, because if you do, that brittle shell of confidence will crack. So we all become passive cowards that carry a fake smile wherever we go because God forbid you let your guard down long enough for people to see your life isn’t perfect. That you have a few flaws. Because who wants to see that? My theory is everybody sucks. So, my conclusion is I don’t need anybody.”

“We’re all meant to lean on something. Or someone.' I smile. He frowns. He surprises me and grabs the pen out of my hand. He starts writing something down in his neat block letters. He slides the journal back to me. 'I build walls around myself. I lean on those.' I don’t need to ask him why. Everybody builds walls—it’s for protection. I scribble quickly. 'Maybe you should break the walls down once in a while.' 'I’ll just build them up again', he writes. 'But maybe you’ll add a few windows the next time around. Or a door?”

“This life had always been my routine but now it felt like a cage.”

“There's a reason why stars can only exist in the sky -- they're just rockets of light traveling through space, so it feels right to admire their form from a distance. People, solid and living and breathing together in the same world, are not meant to be surround by that much darkness.”

“Intuition works closely alongside fate, like they're business partners working together to alter the course of your life.”

“I have more online contacts than I can count. I make about one hundred connections a day. I have access to millions of people. I use to think that I had friends in these numbers. But virtual friends are like stars stretched out in the sky. They’re out there, they exist, and I can imagine what they’re like, but we’ll never meet. We all just co-exist in this vast universe with a length of space between us.”