Sometimes love is a surprise, an instant of recognition, a sudden gift at a sudden moment that makes everything different from then on. Some people will say that's not love, that you can't really love someone you don't know. But, I'm not so sure. Love doesn't seem to follow a plan; it's not a series of steps. It can hit with the force of nature--an earthquake, a tidal wave, a storm of wild relentless energy that is beyond your simple attempts at control.

I've wished for things and never really had the chance...It's time to stop dreaming and do something about it. You've got to know what you want, then...go.

Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.

A new person in your life gives the rest of you a chance to be new, too. Your life can be whatever you want it to, from there on out. I leaned in and kissed and that is who I was to him, not shy, but bold. Not inhibited, but brave. I was that to him and so I kept being that. It was what I thought he wanted and what he was attracted to, and yet it was this, this exact thing I wasn't even really, that made him the most insecure.

I could forget that part, but it had to have been true.

Sometimes I’ve even wished there was a human pause button, where you could choose some point in your life where you could stay always.

I became a writer because I love books, and I believe in their power.