“I’m not saying it will always be easy because we are human. Two people in love will always have uphill battles but it’s how you handle those challenges that truly matter.”

“If you told me today our being together would result in heartbreak I would still choose to be with you because I believe that truly living life is in the experiences not the outcomes.”

“No matter how hard I fought it, no matter how unreasonable or out of control it felt, I knew that Jonathan Hayes owned me, heart and soul.”

“I look into his eyes and jump… off of a high dive plunging deep into the pools of green staring back at me. No matter how hard I fought it, no matter how unreasonable or out of control it feels and no matter how much I try to reason it away the truth in this moment… is that Jonathan Hayes owns me heart and soul.”

“Perfection is not attainable,” he used to say, quoting Vince Lombardi. “But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

“Sometimes pain and hurt are good things because it means you strived for something in your life.”

“I know you like to be in control and you operate a lot from fear but you have to break the bounds of your past Nicole and rewrite the story you’ve been telling yourself based off of others experiences. You have to create your own experience, write your own story.”