"I hope suffering don't exist."

"In this space, in this moment, we are who we want to be. I am lucky, because for me that doesn't take much courage. But for others, it takes a world of bravery to make it to the clearing."

"The sound of words as they're said is always different from the sound they make when they're heard, because the speakers hears some of the sound from the inside."

"It felt good to be surrounded by books, by all this solid knowledge, by these objects that could be ripped page by page but couldn't be torn if the pages all held together."

"The world was full of waistrels and waifs, sycophants and spies - all of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or written suspect."

"Feelings don't follow rules. Guilt does. Fear does. But attraction? No way."

"Maybe this is what alone really is - finding out how tiny your world is, and not knowing how to get anywhere else."

"She is no longer a person in his life; instead, she is a person that other people will remind him of."

"Thoughts can follow you anywhere."

"Part of my music is being alone, having that time to shut down all other noises to hear the tune underneath."

"I can take everything on her face at face value, and that's valuable in a friend."

"All through their relationship, Harry was the one in charge, Harry was the one who gave them direction. This wasn't because Harry was smarter or even better at it than Craig was; it just meant more to him, to be in control. And Craig didn't really care, so he ceded it away. He liked not being responsible all the time.Complacency. Craig realizes now that this was complacency. One of the reasons he liked the sound of Harry's voice was because it meant he didn't have to use his own. But eventually this strategy backfired. Eventually Harry realized what was happening, and didn't feel right about it. He wanted Craig to fight a little more, but by the time Craig started fighting for them to stay together, he had already lost."

"Indelible, adj.That first night, you took your finger and pointed to the top of my head, then traced a line between my eyes, down my nose, over my lips, my chin, my neck, to the center of my chest. It was so surprising. I knew I would never mimic it. That one gesture would be yours forever."

"No, Tiny. Words. Passion. The danger of falling in love is you mistakenly believe the loved one is the only source of passion in your life. But there is passion everywhere. In music. In words. In the stories you tell and the stories you see. Find passion everywhere, and share it widely. Don't narrow it down to one thin line."

"If you were a country," I said, "what would your national anthem be?"I meant a pre-existing song -- "What a Wonderful World" or "Que Sera, Sera" or something to make it a joke, like "Hey Ya!" ("I would like, more than anything else, for my nation to be shaken like a Polaroid picture.")"

"That's what it felt like---that if I let a little of the hurt out, it would keep pouring out until I was a deflated balloon of a person, with a big monster of hurt in front of me."

"Falling in love with someone doesn't mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel."

"The past and future are what's complicated. It's the present that's simple."

"Boomer took bites of all six varieties, contemplating each one and "guring out the order in which he would then eat them. "I like thebrown one and the lighter brown one and the almost-brown one. I'm not so sure about the minty one. But really, I think the lebkuchen spiceone is the best."The what?"The lebkuchen spice one. He held it up for me. "This one."You're making that up. What's a lebkuchen spice? It sounds like a cross between a Keebler elf and a stripper. Hello, my name eesLebkuchen Spice, and I vant to show you my cooooookies..."Don't be rude! Boomer protested. As if the cookie might be offended."

"I say good-bye to hope, but I also say goodbye to hope's disappointment."

"That's what it felt like - that if I let a little of the hurt out, it would keep pouring out until I was a deflated balloon of a person, with a big monster of hurt in front of me."

"Most dancers find their confidence in dancing. Right is mere millimeters away from wrong. Failure is always louder than success. But there is an accumulation of all the things you don't do wrong, and it becomes your confidence. You can even get to the point where confidence lasts longer than the dance. Seconds at first. Then minutes. Then maybe it'll be there when you're walking into a party, or meeting people after a show. You know you have something desirable, and you know you can move."

"...because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life."

"Love, he thinks, is a lie that people tell each other in order to make the world bearable. He is not up for the lie anymore. And nobody is going to lie to him like that, anyway. He's not even worth a lie."

"I didn't want to see her. I was desperate to see her. I wanted to hold it together. I wanted to melt down right at her feet and scream, Look what you've done to me."

"Our friendship is made of bendy straws, long midnight letters,my so-called life marathons, sleepless sleepovers, diner milk shakes, apron strings, a belief in beauty,sucking helium, and the most trust I've ever felt for anyone, including myself."

"You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding."

"The joy is in remembering, the pain is in knowing it was yesterday."

"I was always thinking in terms of too much or not enough, rarely allowing myself that crucial space in between. Except when he was around. Except when we were really together. Then I could forget-I couldn't turn it off, but I could forget to turn it on. Gradually, the columns began to tip. I lost track of keeping track. In order to let us be, I let myself be."

"There are friends, but they are people to spend time with, not people to share time with. There's a false beast that takes the form of instinct and harps on the pointlessness of everything that happens."

"Flagrant, adj. I would be standing right there, and you would walk out of the bathroom without putting the cap back on the toothpaste."

"What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we've never met."

"You can find sorrow in the arithmetic, and you can find a bittersweet hope."

"If I'm not telling you something, it's for a reason. Just because you trust me, it doesn't mean I have to automatically trust you. Trust doesn't work like that."

"Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other."

"Saving others is always more important than saving yourself. It has to be, or none of us would do any good."

"There's no way for them to take away my sadness, but they can make sure I am not empty of all the other feelings."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't usually like people. So when I do, part of me is really amused and the other part refuses to believe it's happening."

"You really think love needs to have a future?"Absolutely."Good, Lily said. "So do I."Good, I echoed, leaning in. "So do you."Don't repeat what I say, she told me, swatting at my arm."Don't repeat what I say, I murmured, smiling."You're being silly, she said, but the silliness was falling out of her voice."You're being silly, I assured her."Lily is the greatest girl who ever was.I drew closer. "Lily is the greatest girl who ever was.For a moment, I think we'd forgotten where we were.And then the officers returned, and we were reminded once again."

"It's Miranda who speaks up. "You're gay," she says, with complete seriousness. "And I love you."

"I want to say more, but don't know what the words are supposed to be. I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable night-time conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no light in the room."

"She is the weakness you think of as strength while I am the strength you have no idea is there."

"In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love for a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for people to do, but I don't understand why it's so hard, when it's so obvious."

"When the heart stops, you die. Love is everywhere that life is, and if there is no love for life, you die. Giving up on love is the same thing as giving up on life itself."

"Enlightenment is scary. Sometimes things look better in the dark."

"When Dawn looked at Vic, she saw Vic exactly as he wanted to be seen. Whereas Vic's parents couldn't help seeing who he used to be, and so many friends and strangers couldn't help seeing who he didn't want to be anymore, Dawn only saw him. Call it a blur if you want, but Dawn didn't see a blur. She saw a very distinct, very clear person."

"Hell, yes," Dev says, sitting up now. "Don't get me wrong - we're totally going to make the beast with two backs tonight. But if we do it right, it's going to feel like holding hands."

"They wouldn't beat him up. They wouldn't break his ribs. He knew that. But they had other ways of breaking him - with silence, with disappointment, with disapproval."

"I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learned the words. It must have been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily."

"We pencil-sketch our previous life so we can contrast it to the technicolor of the moment."