I want to lie down on the bench then, or better yet, on the grass, rest on something living and see if I can hear the dead underneath.

I've been taught that love is beautiful and kind, but it isn't like that at all. It is beautiful, but it's a terrible beauty, a ruthless one, and you fall-you fall, and the thing is- The thing is you want to. You don't care what's coming you just want who your heart beats for.

Talking about someone who makes you happy actually makes you happy. Being happy makes you want to talk, to go over everything, to share it so you can remember it all over again.

I think love is huge, overwhelming. I think it's terrible and beautiful.

My father looked like he was having a stroke— not that Mel seemed to notice because he just kept talking. “Patrick needs a ride. No car, you know, and so I figured, hey, I can pick up some gas money.” He laughed. No one else did, and now Patrick looked like he was trying to push himself inside the door and hide.

Look at me. We aren´t them lauren. You´re not your mother or father any more than I´m my mother. You´re you and I´m me and I love you.

He's looking at me as if the whole world waits for my next breath, with an intensity that makes my heart pound and my palms sweat and then he smiles, a sweet curve of his mouth, and my breath catches, but then I freeze because there is something about it, something beyond it that I know, that makes my mind go blank with fear and pain.