Intimacy doesn't have all that much to do with backseats of cars. Real intimacy is brushing your teeth together.
Gabrielle ZevinSomeday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it. Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens, that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook your boat to mine, because I’m liable to sink us both.
Gabrielle ZevinIn life, Jane reflected, the most interesting things tend to happen when you're on your way to do something else.
Gabrielle ZevinIt was strange, really. A couple months ago, I had thought I couldn’t live without him. Apparently I could.
Gabrielle Zevin...lies can sound awfully pretty when a girl is in love with the person telling them.
Gabrielle ZevinWhat are you reading?" Owen asks. "Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died." "You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.
Gabrielle ZevinDaddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.
Gabrielle ZevinNo one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.
Gabrielle ZevinIt was funny how dad was more honest in a book that anyone in the world could pick up and read than he could be talking to me. Or maybe it was sad. One or the other. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Gabrielle ZevinSaying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know.
Gabrielle ZevinIt is a lie that people who love each other must know everything about each other. Love must occasionally allow for a gap.
Gabrielle ZevinThere's a pleasure to loving someone even when you know there's no chance in them loving you back. The pain I felt let me know I was still alive.
Gabrielle ZevinDaddy always said the only thing worth begging for was your life, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe sometimes your love is a little bit worth begging for, too.
Gabrielle ZevinWe aren't the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.
Gabrielle ZevinIn the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.
Gabrielle ZevinIt was such a sweet, sad song with such sweet, sad lyrics. Old-fashioned a little, but also timeless.
Gabrielle ZevinAs many have discovered, it is entirely possible (although not particularly desirable) to love two people with all your heart. It is entirely possible to long for two lives, to feel that one life can't come close to containing it all.
Gabrielle ZevinBefore I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.
Gabrielle ZevinBut in my defense, I knew enough about her to know I wanted to know everything else; I knew as much about her as she wanted me to know; I knew as much about her as anyone ever knows about anyone. And isn't love just curiosity at the beginning anyway?
Gabrielle ZevinPeople, you'll find, aren't usually all good or bad. Sometimes they're just a little bit good and a whole lot bad. And sometimes they're mostly good with a dash of bad. And most of us, well, we fall in the middle somewhere.
Gabrielle ZevinLife used to move much more quickly when I was a girl. We needed to abbreviate just to keep up.
Gabrielle ZevinDance with me,' Win said. 'I know I'm probably making a fool of myself. You're probably thinking, how many times do I have to reject this guy? Can't he take a hint?' I shook my head. 'But somehow I don't even care. I see you in your red dress, standing by the punch table, and something in me wants to keep trying. I think, she is a person worth knowing.
Gabrielle ZevinIt’s difficult to ever go back to the same places or people. You turn away, even for a moment, and when you turn back around, everything’s changed.
Gabrielle ZevinI let myself feel good and sorry for myself, but only for a second. Daddy always said that the most useless of all human emotions was self-pity.
Gabrielle ZevinThe baby, a girl, is born at 6:24 a.m. She weighs six pounds, ten ounces. The mother takes the baby in her arms and asks her, "Who are you, my little one?" And in response, this baby, who is Liz and not Liz at the same time, laughs.
Gabrielle ZevinOh, all stories are the same, aren't they? Men and women fall in love or out of love. People are born; people die. It al ends happily or it all ends sadly, and the difference matters only to the people involved.
Gabrielle ZevinWin walked over to me. He held out his palm. In the middle of it was a single black sequin from the dress Scarlet had lent me. "You lost this," he said. I giggled, slightly embarrassed to be leaving bits of myself behind. "I'm shedding.
Gabrielle ZevinOh," says Owen, "but I would have, you know." "I know you would have," says Liz, "and knowing you would have is nearly as good.
Gabrielle ZevinLiz, I like you very much," he says. "Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!" Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plan "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the needs to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.'" "O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her. "Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?
Gabrielle ZevinThe truth is, sometimes too much can happen in a relationship, and then there's nothing anyone can do or say. It's broken.
Gabrielle Zevin