I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces—they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.

But I want to feel like life matters. I had something real with you, but then the realness scared me. I decided to go for other things instead.

You're giving up. You're slipping into being miserable and if you are being miserable, then it's all about you again. But it's not all about you. Love doesn't work that way.

The unwarranted devotion. Putting up with the fear of being with the wrong person because you can't deal with the fear of being alone. The hope tinged with doubt, and the doubt tinged with hope. Every time I see these feelings in someone else's face, it weighs me down.

Two infinities: the one that stretches to the beginning but never touches-when you halve and halve and halve, infinitely-and then the one that spreads out into the endless, endless future, the endless, endless, distance.The set of infinities that is itself infinite.

Even if neither of us got what we wanted, we found freedom in the third choices.

My face seems too square and my eyes too big, like I'm perpetually surprised, but there's nothing wrong with me that I can fix.