You must hurt, or be hurt.

She liked that word: we. It sounded warm and open, like a hug.

When you love someone, when you care for someone, you have to do it through the good and the bad. Not just when you're happy and it's easy.

And it's the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I haven't been falling at all. I've been floating.

He’s speaking in the tone of voice that everyone uses when they’re about to break you apart. Gentle—kind, even—like they can make the news sound better just by speaking in a lullaby voice.

And now I realize Lindsay's not fearless. She's terrified. She's terrified that people will find out she's faking, bullshitting her way through life, pretending to have everything together when really she's just floundering like the rest of us. Lindsay, who will bite at you if you even look in her direction the wrong way, like on of those tiny attack dogs that are always barking and snapping in the air before they're jerked backward on the chains that keep them in one place.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead I met an Invalid, and fell for his art He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.