All I can say is that you make me... you make me into someone I couldn't even imagine. You make me happy, even when you're awful. I would rather be with you - even the you that you seem to think is diminished - than with anyone else in the world.

Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you still had your mother or father at your back, you'd be okay.

I told him I loved him,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he just said it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were wide and bleak . “How am I supposed to live with that?

The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life--or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else's life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window--is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.

How is it possible to exist with so much pain?

There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life---real life---seems to exist at one remove.

Just hold on. Just for a minute." "Are you all right ?" I found my gaze dropping towards his chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong. "I'm fine. I just...I don't want to go in just yet. I just want to sit and not have to think about...I just...want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.