I believe that having something to hope for - even if it's just a better tomorrow- is the most powerful drug on this planet.

That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?

Peter curled his hands into fists at his sides. 'Kiss me,' he said. She leaned towards him slowly, until her face was too close to be in focus. Her hair fell over Peter's shoulder like a curtain and her eyes closed. She smelled like autumn-like apple cider and slanting sun and the snap of the coming cold. He felt his heart scrambling, caught inside the confines of his own body. Josie's lips landed just on the edge of his, almost his cheek and not quite his mouth. 'I'm glad I wasn't stuck in here alone,' she said shyly, and he tasted the words, sweet as mint on her breath.

Imagine if you were the positive pole of a magnet, and you were told that under no circumstances were you allowed to touch that negative pole that was sucking you in like a black hole. Or if you crawled out of the desert and found a woman standing with a pitcher of ice water, but she held it out of your reach. Imagine jumping off a building, and then being told not to fall. That's what it feels like to want a drink.

You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?... A plan.

You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.

The first person you fell in love with stole your heart. The first person you made love with stole your soul. And if these were one and the same, you were doomed.