“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“Love hurts. Love stinks. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to show them. But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“There are all kinds of mix tapes. there is always a reason to make one.”

“Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of life.”

“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with thisquestion through the ages, and in the modern era, they havecome up with many different answers. According to the Westernphilosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan FrankSinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. Thestoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on thehoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary Schoolparking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit“Love Is Like Oxygen”—you get too much, you get too high,not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Lovebites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our timesall agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you toshow them.But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

“But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy, human bodies.”

“Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix-tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.”