“Sometimes, happiness feels so fragile…So what do we do about it?...Live. Forget that it’s fragile. Live like it isn’t”

“When it comes to Clare, sometimes, the past isn't past. The past can get as present as any present ever was, so near that I feel its breath.”

“I know how syrupy this sounds, how dull, provincial, and possibly whitewashed, but what can I do? Happy childhoods happen”

“Its hard to say what was happening inside her head. Her brain doesn't function quite like most people's to begin with and maybe, under a lot of stress, she just lost the ability to hope.Dev pondered this, hope as an ability.I guess that's what's so hard for me to get to, the no hope. To think that, of all the potential scenarios out there, there's not a single good one? It just seems like we- as human beings- know so much, but its nothing compared to what we don't know. The universe surprises us, right? That's just what it does. So how could she be so one hundred percent positive that nothing good would happen?”

“It's ok to feel happy, right? She hoped he'd know what she meant.”

“Happiness isn't what happens when you whistle along, pretending bad things don't exist. . . Happiness is earned, like everything else. It's achieved. ”

“All those films in which the woman doesn't get her man, those films of yearning unsatisfied, hearts unappeased. You like them; I've liked them too. But I'll tell you what: try belonging body and soul to a man who will never belong to you; see how well you like those films then. "Don't ask for the moon-we have the stars!" ... "Pardon me saying so, but fuck the fucking stars!”