It was no coincidence, that fear could move a person to extremes, just as seamlessly as love. They were the conjoined twins of emotion: If you didn't know what was at stake to lose, you had nothing to fight for.

Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.

Families were never what you wanted them to be. We all wanted what we couldn't have: the perfect child, the doting husband, the mother who wouldn't let go. We live in our grown-up dollhouses completely unaware that, at any moment, a hand might come in and change around everything we'd become accustomed to.

She wanted him to tell her that when you love someone so hard and so fierce, it was all right to do things that you knew were wrong.

I have loved before, but it didn’t feel like this. I have kissed before, but it didn’t burn me alive. Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it’s an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that, even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever.

We sit for a few more moments, although there's really nothing left to say. This is new to me, too, an entire conversation that takes place in silence, because the heart has its own language. I will remember what Eric says even though he doesn't say a word. I will tell it to her.

What if instead of focusing on what you don't have, you concentrate on what you've got?