“Whatever age you are when you’re first burned is old enough to lose hope that you’ll ever get excited about anybody else.”

“Nothing makes you get down on yourself and worry that you’re undesirable like rejection, so having someone desirable desire you is the ultimate antidote.”

“A boy sees a girl topless for the first time only once, and the anticipation of the big reveal is really exciting. I feel like I’m a present being unwrapped.”

“I love where he and I stand right now. It’s like we’re on the brink, and everything’s full of excitement and potential precisely because the heavy making out is still something to look forward to. I realize we can’t remain PG-rated forever. I’m all too aware, though, how easy it is to let hooking up become the crux of a relationship. Then you forget how to just be together and why you should stay together. So for the meantime I’d like to take things slowly in order to prevent hooking up from ever getting too important.Amy would say I’m overreacting, but I’m just trying to learn from past mistakes.”

“Doing things for someone else is what I love most about relationships, even more than having stuff done for me.”

“One of the pitfalls of having an ex-boyfriend is that people still pair you together in their memories, and sooner or later someone’s bound to mention him. And now that it has happened . . . I can’t say I feel nothing. I don’t think it’s possible to get royally dumped by the only boy I’ve ever done it with, let alone loved, and then feel nothing when he’s brought up in conversation.”

“Some scientists hypothesize that having children is the only reason romantic love came about. It kept couples together long enough to mate and see a baby through infancy.”