Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does?

I might be alone, but i'm never lonely.

But sometimes it's the sunshine that frightens us more than the big black shadows.

I looked at the cards in my hand, the queen of hearts nestled between the king of clubs and the king of spades. No wonder she was smiling.

The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now.

What are you, Elle? Are you a ghost? Are you an angel or a demon? Because you can’t be real.

From the first time you laughed with me, all those months, and all those stories,” Joe said quietly. “They were all you, to me. All of them were you.