“I wanted to tell her everything, maybe if I’d been able to, we could have lived differently, maybe I’d be there with you now instead of here. Maybe… if I’d said, ‘I’m so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything,’ maybe that would have made the impossible possible. Maybe, but I couldn’t do it, I had buried too much too deeply inside me. And here I am, instead of there.”

“He was the toast to her butter.”

“Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.”

“Someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. They can love you in a way you have never been loved and still not join you on the bridge. And whatever their reasons you must leave. Because you never ever have to inspire anyone to meet you on the bridge. You never ever have to convince someone to do the work to be ready. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen, out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready.”

“I don’t remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.”

“Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn’t what romantic songs tell us it is – love simply is.”

“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

“I mean, it’s not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It’s, like, part of you for good.”

“There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We’d be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think ‘it will be okay if it can just be like this forever’ but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.”

“Whatever happened to the dragon?”I mustered my primmest tone. “He has a name, you know.”Adrian pulled back and gave me a curious look. “I didn’t know, actually. What’d you decide on?””Hopper.” When Adrian laughed, I added, “Best rabbit ever. He’d be proud to know his name is being passed on.””Yes, I’m sure he would. Did you name the Mustang too?””I think you mean the Ivashkinator.”He stared at me in wonder. “I told you I loved you, right?”Yes,” I assured him. “Many times.”

“The words ‘I Love You’ kill, and resurrect millions, in less than a second.”

“abyss, n.There are times when I doubt everything. When I regret everything you’ve taken from me, everything I’ve given you, and the waste of all the time I’ve spent on us.”

“But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.To know the pain of too much tenderness.To be wounded by your own understanding of love;And to bleed willingly and joyfully.To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;To rest at noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;To return home at eventide with gratitude;And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.”

“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!”

“The moment our lips met, I knew with pure and piercing certainty that I would have waited for him forever.”