“Falling for someone romantically is more complex. Manyof the old classic languages refer to three different typesof love or affection. Roughly translated, they includegeneral, brotherly and sexual love. When all three arepresent, a relationship is indeed rich.”

“Often romantic relationships fail because you are trying to get someone to fall in love with the YOU that you never discovered.”

“There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more.”

“Three weeks was apparently time enough to fall in love, but not long enough to fall out of love. Meg had this unfortunate truth drummed into her head each morning when she woke, hoping this would be the day that she forgot about Alex, this would be the day she could get on with her life and put Edinburgh behind her. She grimaced. Three weeks, three years, it didn’t make a difference. She would remember.Everything.”

“Lola writes in her notebook: Leaf-fleas are even worse. Someone said, They don't bite people, because people don't have leaves. Lola writes, When the sun is beating down, they bite everything, even the wind. And we all have leaves. Leaves fall off when you stop growing, because childhood is all gone. And they grow back when you shrivel up, because love is all gone. Leaves spring up at will, writes Lola, just like tall grass. Two or three children in the village don't have any leaves, and those have a big childhood. A child like that is an only child, because it has a father and a mother who have been to school. The leaf-fleas turn older children into younger ones - a four-year-old into a three-year-old, a three-year-old into a one-year-old. Even a six-months-old, writes Lola, and even a newborn. And the more little brothers and sisters the leaf-fleas make, the smaller the childhood becomes.”

“I love you. ... they are the three most abused and underused words in the English language.”