There is no reason that we should ever be ashamed of our bodies or ashamed of our love.

Your life is inescapable. Unless you decide to escape it.

The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising.

That lasting things do, in fact, last.

I can't pretend to know what love is. It just is.

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.

And I find myself saying, “It wasn’t really about her.” And finding it’s true. What do you mean?” Norah asks. It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn’t about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love.