“I think people are nuts to shut themselves inside all day. We're cutting ourselves off from each other and it's only going to get worse.”

“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?”

“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.”

“It's not convenience that bothers me, it's people's obsession with saving time. Everything's a race. I just don't get who or what we're constantly racing against.”

“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.”

“We're taught to love only a few people. We think it's this sacred resource, like we'll run out of it at some point. But the more you love, the more it's returned to you. Hands down. You can't argue with that.""Maybe," I say. "Or maybe you stop giving it so freely because one day it's taken away and it hurts so much, you need to protect yourself."She know what I'm referring to. "Until you realize love's the only think worth living for in the first place.”

“It was safe, with all the lights off and no one around to point and stare. In the night it's easy to indulge. It was just the two of us—we didn't have to think about who we were or what this meant or where it was going. It was like an escape. It's easy to forget at this moment billions of people exist and far-off galaxies are being born and stars collide. Kissing is its own kind of collision, it produces its own planetarium of lights inside your head. For me, it was like seeing colors for the first time after living in a black-and-white world. A single person can be just as wide and vast and spellbinding as any sky full of stars. They can make you think the world stops and night can last forever.",”