Your peers when you're a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life's great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now.

I think of the future all the time. All my life I've chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I've actually caught one. I'll give you one day at a time, Claire. But remember, I'm thousands of days ahead already.

all we have is our deep and abiding love for each other. We can't loose that or we loose ourselves. If we don't help each other, who will?

That's the fairy tale. You meet, you fall in love, you kiss, and neither of you is revolted by it. You get married and have kids and live happily ever after.

Watching them, she realized they made so much sense together. Every look, every touch, was a reassurance, almost electric, as if they were shocking each other with every contact.

She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

Her life was monotonous, but it kept her out of trouble. . . . This, her father would say, was called being an adult.