I'm used to a feeling of doubleness, of thinking one thing and having to do another, a constant tug-of-war.

This is the strange way of the world, that people who simply want to love are instead forced to become warriors.

It won't matter if nobody ever thinks I'm pretty (although sometimes I wish, just for a second, that somebody would)

I just want to be normal, like everybody else." "Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?

my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart.

i suppose that's the secret, if you're ever wishing for things to back the way they were. You just have to look up.

it seemed a lifetime ago i'd lain in bed with Lena and felt her breath tickling my chin and held her while she slept, felt her heart beating through her skin to mine. it was a lifetime ago. everything was different.