Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.

You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked. She shook her head. He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart," he told her, and left.

Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring.

Sometimes," Jem said, "our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.

Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do.

There is no cure for fictional character love, but the plus side is that it is an entirely benign disease with no bad side effects.

It's very advanced of you to have accepted my mortality so fatalistically.