Mad About You

Jamie: [to Paul after an operation] Oh my God, don't ever die. 'Give me my Romeo and when he shall die take him and cut him into little stars and make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night.' Did I ever tell you I played Juliet in the sixth grade? I did. Opposite Stephen Polumbo's Romeo. Oi, what an actor he was. He started crying during my monologue - when he was supposed to be dead - because he said I was 'leaning on his arm.' Oh my God, don't ever die. There's so much more to tell you and I'm not interested in telling it to anyone else. And I'm not saying I'd be helpless, I mean I'm bright and fairly good with money. And I guess I'm cute, I guess. You would say 'What are you, kidding me? You, my little friend are a perfect example of beautiful.' And so I am. Because I am nothing more or less than what I see in your eyes when you look at me. Do you know how long I waited for you? My mother used to say I was too picky or afraid of commitment and that that's why I was still unmarried by the age of almost-thirty, but the truth is, I was... just looking for you. Do you know how close I came to being a narrow, cold, mistrustful woman? But you have given me a life that's so big... and full... and good... and fun. I don't even know what we do really besides clean up and complain and wish we were sleeping but with you somehow: fun! And I'll tell you a secret: When we got married I couldn't imagine still wanting to be with anyone all this time later. But I do. It's a miracle to me. You are a miracle. You've made me happy which is something I never ever though I'd be.

It's the way we're built I suppose.

The more you live, the less you'll die.

What are you doing the rest of your life? North and South and East and West of your life? I have only one request of your life. That you spend it all with me.

There's a particular brand of pit that grows in your stomach when you know you're losing control and there's nothing you can do about it. Heavy as granite and moldering. It's the way we're built I suppose. A natural reaction to the unstoppable spin of the earth below. Forever trying to wrest control of life, love, work, and home. And when we can't get control there, we'll fight for it wherever we can. As if we think we could stop the world from spinning just by being mad.

People say things like they'd never change something that's happened in their life because everything happens for a reason. That can't be true. There's at least one thing everyone puts in the back of their mind. When they think about it, I'll bet they cringe and remember the pain they felt. No one looks back on something heartbreaking and is fine with the fact that it happened. There's still that one tear that forms in your eye. It's there, whether it falls down your cheek or not.

It's kind of an amazing thing to be around for the moment your best friend becomes exactly what they've dreamt about their entire life.

But what I see is that everyone keeps changing, evolving, except for me. I lack courage. Not the kind of courage it takes to rescue a person from a burning building. Not adrenaline courage. But everyday courage, the kind that, once it’s added up, day after day, equals a happy life.

This is my new hobby. I watch my life depart minute by minute. I anticipate the end of everything and anything--a conversation, a class, track practice, darkness--only to be left with more clock-watching to take its place. I am continually waiting for something better that never comes. Maybe it would help if I knew what I wanted.

What's amazing is when you can actually feel your life going somewhere. Like it just figured out how to get good.

"You think maybe if you just work harder and faster you can hold off the chaos, but then one day you're changing a lightbulb with a five year life span and you realize how you'll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you'll be dead."

--Chuck Palahniuk

Your body is a work in progress.

"It is all about perception. The power of the mirror is only as strong as the person reflected in it."

--Grace Bowman, 'Thin'

I have no use for "before and after" pictures. I can't remember starting, and I'm never done.

Your body is always a work in progress, worry about keeping your heart open and your mind alert.

"I feel like I go from extreme vanity to total self-loathing. Like there's days where you just feel good and you feel confident and can shake your thing and do it. And then there's other times where you just feel totally self-conscious and insecure."

--Conor Oberst

"One thing I can guarantee: You'll get into trouble if you eat nothing but french fries."

--Richard Roberts, Ph.D.

Nobody wants to hear the truth... unless you tell them that they've lost weight.

And I learned to love my body even if I didn't have a flat stomach, the right pant size or great thighs; because if I didn't love what I carried, how did I expect somebody else to?

You will never be more beautiful, or thin, or happy than you are right now. Make the most of it.

Stop thinking of your body as a collection of flaws to apologize for.

If you are what you eat, in my case I'd be sweet.

What else is there?

All quotes by author Nicholas Sparks

“The entire summer was perfect, the kind of summer everyone should have.”

--'The Notebook'

“All I knew that was I wanted to turn around and go back home, to be in the place I was meant to be.”

--'Dear John'

"She didn't know exactly, but he did exist, and one of the things she had learned early in her life was that if you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it. If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out you were wrong in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and wondering what might have been."

--'Message In A Bottle'

"During the day, her brown hair was long & straight, but after a night in bed, it looked as if it had been attacked by comb-teasing pillow gnomes."

--'The Guardian'

"Maybe it was the way he kept staring at you all night. For a second there, I thought his eyes were attached to you by an invisible string."

--'The Guardian'

"I did not care about the pain that night, just as I do not care about the scar today."

--'A Bend In the Road'

"I don’t need those things to make me happy. A nice quiet place to unwind at the end of the day, beautiful views, a few good friends. What else is there?"

--'A Bend In The Road'

Hurt is all relative.

All quotes from 'Let's Get Lost' by Sarra Manning

The truth was that nothing could touch me anymore. Hurt is all relative. It’s, like, if someone jabs a knife in your heart, then you’re not going to notice a paper cut. So all the stuff at school was just bells and whistles.

I was starting to get the nagging suspicion that I wasn’t tougher than I looked. Inside, I was as fluffy and insubstantial as a marshmallow.

All I knew is that if I had some alcohol, then maybe I could forget about the utter crappiness of everything for five minutes. If I had a lot of alcohol, then maybe I could forget about it for even longer.

I realized my heart still had a bit of breaking left in it.

I think I needed to be really hurt on the outside so the hurt on the inside would realize that it wasn’t on its own and that it had to come out.

I’ve been mauled by boys for the last two years. It leaves me cold and worrying that I’m a freak because a sweaty hand on my tits and a tongue tickling my esophagus does nothing for me. But Smith’s hand on my elbow made me tingle all over.

I didn’t answer because I had my face burrowed in the crook of his neck, which was toasty and soft and my new favorite place in the world. When I kissed him there, he giggled, then tried to turn it into a manly cough. But really there was nothing to say because all my mouth wanted to do was kiss him, and it turned out his mouth was totally down with that, too.

She was really starting to piss me off. But shouting and screaming and saying “fuck” a lot doesn’t really get your point across. Sometimes silence is the most violent option to choose.

My whole life had split in two: Smith and not Smith. I liked the Smith parts of it so much better.

Like it or not, you'd never be alone.

All quotes from 'Lock And Key' by Sarah Dessen

Sure, it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go.

My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them.

“I’m saying you can’t have it both ways,” I told him. “You can’t act like you care about someone but not let them care about you."

You don’t have to make it so hard, I wanted to say, but there was a time I hadn’t believed this, either. Who was I to tell anyone how to be saved? Only the girl who had tried every way not to be.

What is family? For me, right then, it was one person who’d left me, and two I would have to leave soon. Maybe this was an answer. But it wasn’t the right one. Of that, I was sure.

But that’s just the thing, right? Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.

Back then, I’d thought my mother made up all the songs she sang to me, which was why it was so weird the first time I heard one of them on the radio. It was like discovering that some part of you wasn’t yours at all, and it made me wonder what else I couldn’t claim. But that was later. At the time, there were only the songs, and they were still all ours, no one else’s.

With my mom, when someone was gone, they were gone. She didn’t waste another minute thinking about them, and neither should you.

But now here I was, too far gone to be a stranger, not ready to be friends, the little acquaintance we had made still managing to be, somehow, too much.

What I’d noticed, though, was that more and more lately, when I tried to picture where I did belong, I couldn’t.

As he left the room, I looked down at the picture again, and at the girl in the center, noticing how serene and happy she looked surrounded by all those people. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one thing was for sure: like it or not, you’d never be alone.

Again, with us so close to each other, my first instinct was to pull back, like I had before. But instead, I made myself stay where I was and relax as his hand moved over mine.

I was beginning to wonder if you didn’t always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper. In the moments that it really counts, maybe it’s enough—more than enough, even—just to be there.

We can’t expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it’s a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.

Searching was useless. There’s just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

Looking down at the pond, all I could think was that it is an incredible thing, how a whole world can rise from what seems like nothing at all.

“Just wait a second. We can’t leave it like this.” But this, too, wasn’t true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

Words are like nets.

All quotes from 'Change Of Heart' by Jodi Picoult

I almost regretted it--the same way you stand beneath a perfect blue sky on the most glorious day of the summer and admit to yourself that all moments from here on in couldn't possibly measure up.

In the space between yes and no, theres a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; It's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are, it's the leg room for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.

When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.

It was so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate someone who could make you feel that there was a reason you'd been put on this earth.

College is a bubble. You enter it for four years and forget there is a real world outside of your paper deadlines and midterm exams and beerpong championships. You don't read the newspaper -- you read textbooks. You don't watch the news -- you watch Letterman. But even so, bits and snatches of the universe manage to leak in.

There are all sorts of experiences that we can't really put a name to. The birth of a child, for one. Or the death of a parent. Falling in love. Words are like nets -- we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.