“Why are the only happy endings the ones where the couples get together?” I ask. “Can’t they just be friends? Can’t that be a happy ending too?”

“Relationships take time. They are days and nights and weeks. They are stretched and worked and kneaded into something you never imagined they could be. But when they are over, the end comes so quickly you barely have time to breathe, to blink. They are minutes and seconds, and one moment you have everything and the next you have nothing. So here’s my question: when you lose the most important person to you in the entire world, where is all the love—love you never even knew you were capable of—supposed to go?”

“Because love, no matter how tragic, is not an ending. It is a test and a textbook; it is a map to undiscovered places and a lexicon of languages yet to be spoken.Love.Really, it is a beginning.”

“She wants to be friends. But what does that mean? Were we ever really friends? Friends don’t stay up talking on the phone Every Single Night about Stupid Lit le Things and Most Important Things until it’s light outside. Friends don’t tell each other their most secret secrets. Friends don't hook up. Friends don't ache for each other. They just don't.”

“Just because two people don’t wind up spending their entire lives together doesn’t mean their relationship was a failure.”

“I have never really understood why people call it falling in love but now, tonight, I do. Because when I drop Garrett off and watch her wave goodbye, I feel like I am furiously out of control and falling fast. But also I feel like I’m flying, like there is wind and air beneath me. I don’t thinkyou can fall and fly at the same time, though; I don’t understand how it would work. It seems that eventually one will win out over the other, and I’m pretty sure it’s much easier to crash than it is to soar.”

“...but that’s the thing about best friends—you’re allowed to sound pathetic because they love you unconditionally.”