Is that what relationships become? A reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in. It was more than that. I know it was more than that.

My parents always liked it when I cursed in front of them. I could see the pleasure of it in their faces. It signified that I trusted them, that I was myself in front of them.

Of course I tensed up when he touched me. To be with him was to hurt him-inevitably. And that's what I'd felt as he reached for me: I'd felt as though I were committing an act of violence against him, because I was.

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home.

The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Water's death with was Augustus Waters.

It has been my experience that maximizing income is a helluva lot less important than maximizing passion and fulfillment in your both professionally and personally.

We have bottled all the stars this evening, my young friend.