“There’s something about distance, being removed from what’s familiar, that lets things happen.”

“I don't know if any of this would have happened if we had been at home... Would we have crammed ourselves into the bathroom of a San Francisco restaurant to play her song? I doubt it. There's something about distance, being removed from what's familiar, that let's things happen.”

“They say that's what happens when you fall in love. You want to tell people things. You especially want to tell them sad things. Hidden sad things from the past. Something like: I was abandoned at a sweetshop in an unspecified European country.”

“Here it is, all at once: rightness. Not the graffiti itself, even though it's undeniably spectacular, but this feeling of making plans and carrying them them through, of meeting people and getting to know them, of being asked to do something and saying Yes, of wanting something, asking for it, making it happen.”

“If things happen for a reason, I was meant to get fucked over.”

“Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak- I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak- the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt... Then I look out to where there's this huge group of trees in the distance, and I count those for all the times I called her some name, or told her she was being stupid- because even though I was always joking, it might have hurt.”

“I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that's the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.”