"Desire is easy to fight. Especially when the only weapon desire possesses is attraction. It's not so easy when you're trying to win a war against the heart."

"I don't understand my sudden obsession with staring at her, but i can't seem to stop."

"Because it's not muscles that make men strong. Secret do. The more secret you keep, the stronger you are on the inside."

"It's killing me, baby, he says, his voice much more calm and quiet. "It's killing me because I don't want you to go another day without knowing how I feel about you. And I'm not ready to tell you I'm in love with you, because I'm not. Not yet. But whatever this is I'm feeling-it's so much more than just like. It's so much more. And for the past few weeks I've been trying to figure it out. I've been trying to figure out why there isn't some other word to describe it. I want to tell you exactly how I feel but there isn't a single goddamned word in the entire dictionary that can describe this point between liking you and loving you, but I need that word. I need it because I need you to hear me say it."

"You wanted to lick my face the first time you saw me? Is that usually what you do when you're attracted to guys? I shake my head. "Not your face, your dimple. And no. You're the only guy I've ever had the urge to lick. He smiles at me confidently. "Good. Because you're the only girl I've ever had the urge to love."

"Fate.A word meaning destiny.Fate. A word meaning doom."

"I tell myself that with enough effort, I can control my feelings."

"But that's the thing about cancer. They call it the fight, as if the stronger ones win and the weaker ones lose, but that's not what cancer is at all. Cancer isn't one of the players in the game. Cancer is the game. It doesn't matter how much endurance you have. It doesn't matter how much you've practiced. Cancer is the be-all and end-all of the sport, and the only thing you can do is show up to the game with your jersey on. Because you never know... you might be forced to sit the bench for the entire game. You may not even be given the chance to compete."

"Sometimes moving on is the only way to move on."

"No, Sky. You didn't tell her everything you told you everything. Those things happened to you, not to someone else. They happened to Hope. They happened to Sky. They happened to the best friend that I loved all those years ago, and they happened to the best friend I love who's looking back at me right now."

"I hope you defy the odds of most dreams and actually accomplish yours."

"Love and hate, despite their polar opposites, are both feelings that are induced by passion. I can handle that. It's the indifference I don't know how to process."

"Loving someone doesn't just include that person, Ben. Loving someone means accepting all the things and people that person loves, too. And I will. I do. I promise."

"You told me once that too much good in a person's life will stunt their growth. You said pain is necessary, because in order for a person to succeed, they must first learn to conquer adversity. And that's what you do... you deliver adversity where you see fit."

"I wanted to cry because I needed you there with me so bad. I knew in that moment that I was in love with you. I was in love with the way you loved me. When you wrapped your arms around me and held me, I knew that no matter what happened with my life, you were my home. You stole the biggest piece of my heart that night."

"I know it's hard for you to allow yourself to feel this. You've gone so long training yourself to block the feelings and emotions out any time someone touches you."

"I don't want Sydney ever to feel like my second choice, when I know in my heart that she's the right choice. The only choice."

"When you find love, you take it. You grab it with both hands and you do everything in your power not to let it go. You can't just walk away from it and expect it to linger until you're ready for it."

"Don'ttempt the scorpion if you don't want toget stung."

"She's familiar. My only familiar thing in a world of inconsistency and confusion."

"What rules?"Well, for one, I'm not allowed to break your heart, he says. "Second, I'm also not allowed to break your damn heart. And last, I'm not allowed to fucking break your damn heart."

"It's strange how money seems to silence a neighborhood," I say quietly. "On my street, where no one has money, it's so loud. Sirens blaring, people shouting, car doors slamming, stereos thumping. There's always someone, somewhere, making noise."

"I press my lips to hers with such delicacy; I want her to feel everything she's ever deserved to feel at the hands of someone else. She deserves to feel beautiful. She deserves to feel important. She deserves to feel cared for. She deserves to feel respected. She deserves to feel like there's at least one other person in this world who accepts her for exactly who she is.She deserves to know how I feel, because I feel all of those things. And maybe a little more."

"I hate that its my favorite thing to watch her, because it shouldn't be. It triggers all these what-ifs in my head, and my mind begins imagining things it shouldn't be imagining..."

"How do you not fall in love with him?"The tears begin flowing just as quickly as they were ceasing. I grab yet another tissue. "I don't not fall in love with him. I don't not fall in love with him a lot!"

"I've done nothing for the past five years but try to be the hero who protects her. The problem? Heroines don't need protecting."

"I grab the pillows off the bed and chuck them at the reflection in the mirror of the girl I no longer know. I watch as the girl in the mirror stares back at me, sobbing pathetically. The weakness in her tears infuriates me."

"She's lost in thought. I'm lost in her."

"This thing about you that you think is your flaw - it's the reason I'm falling in love with you."

"The only difference between falling in love and being in love is that your heart already knows how you feel, but your mind is too stubborn to admit it."

"I absolutely, positively hate this beautiful, magical feeling."

"I feel like my maybe someday just became my right now."

"Don't, Mom. I begin walking toward her, but I can see the mist forming in her eyes. "No, no, no. By the time I reach her, it's too late. She's bawling. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's crying. Not because it makes me emotional, but because it annoys the hell out of me. And it's awkward."

"It's okay to feel whatever you need to feel. Just promise me that you will never, ever feel guilty. Promise me that you will never blame yourself. It's not your fault. You're just a little girl and it's not your fault that your life is so much harder than it should be. And as much as you'll want to forget these things ever happened to you and as much as you'll want to forget this part of your life existed, I need for you to remember."

"It's crap that you're letting on bad year determine your fate for the rest of your life."

"While he spends all of his time trying to remember, I spend all of my time trying to forget.I don't want to remember how it feels to love him.I want to forget everything in this world that reminds me of him."

"That's not a good idea."

"Don't ask about my past. And never expect a future."

"You have a nice mouth," he says. "I can't stop looking at it.""You should taste it. It's quite lovely."

"It's amazing what the sound of a voice you've been longing to hear can do to your heart. He spoke five words just now, but in the time it took him to speak those five words, my heart was shredded and minced, then placed back inside my chest with the expectation that it should somehow know how to beat again."

"When life gets you down do you wanna know what you've gotta do? . . . Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming."

"I stop stretching and face him, unwilling to back down from this visual standoff. I'm not going to let him perform his little Jedi mind tricks on me, no matter how much I wish I could perform them on him. He's completely unreadable and even more unpredictable. It pisses me off."

"I'm meeting the attic before I meet the girl."

"Whether or not the couple ends up together at the end of a book doesn't determine whether the book has a happy ending or not. As long as the two people end up happy, it doesn't really matter if they end up happy together."

"Naked truths aren't always pretty."

"Tears won't help me right now. They'll just make me weaker."

"And that's where love finds you... in the tragedies."

"I'll love you forever, even when I can't."

"But it feels good just getting it out-letting someone else know how much hatred I'm harboring."

"I stood beside the U-Haul, and I just watched her. I stared at her while she looked on with the saddest look in her eyes. I wanted to know what she was thinking about, what was going on in her head. What had mad her so sad? I wanted to hug her so bad. When she finally got out of the U-Haul and I introduced myself to her, it took all I had to let go of her hand. I wanted to hold on to it forever. I wanted to let her know that she wasn't alone. Whatever burden it was that she was carrying around, I wanted to carry it for her. I wish I could, Lake. I wish I could take it all away. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. It doesn't just go away."