It was like we were all so busy trying to be happy or saying we were happy, but underneath there was nothing but bitterness, the kind that could only be bled out in ink, in unspoken word.

Darling, the world doesn't owe you anything.

I love the me I am with him. I’m the girl who has Dave. I’m Lauren, Dave’s girlfriend. I’m someone better than Lauren Smith, who no one noticed till Dave came along. The thing is, that girl isn’t me and I know it. But when I’m with him, I feel like I could be her. That if something in me was just–I don’t know, shifted a little or something, smoothed down–people would think of me the way they think of Dave, and everything would always be perfect. I would be perfect.

Just once, I wanted to lose something without the whole world watching.

All the things I've thought about love are true. It's beautiful and terrible and it doesn't make things perfect. It ends things, and it brings beginnings. This is mine.

Anger can try to break your heart, but sorrow is what will. What can. What does.

There's no good way to die, you know? No way I've seen, anyway. It all ends with tubes and bedpans and IVs and I just-- smoking gets me out of there. Gets me outside, gets me away from all the--" "Sick people?" I say, and she shakes her head. "Away from my life.