“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it.”

“Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said.“Don’t you want it?”“Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.”“Why?”Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?”“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said.“So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.”

“Noel shook his head. "You think better of this scene than I do, Ruby. Don't you see how fake those girls are? Let it go. Have a laugh about it when you're older. Forget that junk." I wanted to believe him, to skip off to some punk-rock hangout and develop ironic distance and start over in a universe where it didn't matter what any of these people thought about me. But I couldn't. I just loved them.”

“Love is when you give someone else the power to destroy you, and you trust them not to do it.”

“People think of hearts when they think of love, but a heart is a bloody organ in the body. It doesn't have any emotions. It's like a metaphor for love that has nothing to do with what love actually is.”

“When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful - he probably has.”

“The movies make the brooding guy the hero – the guy with problems the guy who carries a gun, the gun with unresolved anger, the guy with a chip on his shoulder, the guy who’s a vampire – and they tell you that you can have the mythical happy ending with that same brooding guy. But in reality, the brooding guy is cranky. He doesn’t reply to emails. He doesn’t call. He’s only half there when you’re talking to him, and he doesn’t chase you when you run. You feel insecure all the time. You get needy and sad and you hate yourself got being needy. If you don’t know why he’s brooding, you’re shut out. And if you do know why he’s brooding, you’re still shut out. (Because he’s busy brooding.)”