Such was the case with most unhappy students; they avoided even one another, so intent on their own unhappiness they failed to notice the other lost souls around them.
But Sally didn’t have the heart to fight back. She wore dark clothes and tried not to be noticed. She pretended she wasn’t smart and never raised her hand in class. She disguised her own nature so well that after a while she grew uncertain of her own abilities.
Desire had a way of making a person oddly courageous.
Because we were Russian, sadness came naturally to us. But so did reading. In my family, a book was a life raft.
When you help others, your own troubles aren’t as heavy. In fact, you can fold them like a handkerchief and place them in your pocket. They’re still there, but they’re not the only thing you carry.
As Gary understands it, the greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself, and he and Sally have both served themselves from the same table tonight, the only difference being that he knows what he’s missing, and she has no idea what is causing her to cry as she drives down the Turnpike.
If anything, love was like light, illuminating what no one would have ever guessed was there in the darkness.
It was a small ceremony at the town hall, and they didn’t exchange wedding rings, but they kissed for so long at the counter in the hall of records that they were asked to leave.
Maybe he understands that saying thank you can be just as hard as saying good-bye.
Sometimes words spoken are the ones you’ve been afraid to think, but once they’re said aloud there’s no way to make them disappear.
And what of monsters? Can they love too? We know quite well they can. For we know that they do.
In Berlin evil came to them slowly and then all at once.
The only way to understand a river is to jump into it.
One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her. She was so busy forgetting, she couldn’t take a single step into the future.
In good time every secret must be shared and every miracle called into question.
I had been blind to the pain of others until I had my own burden to carry.
They had likely been together twenty times, an entire world created in just days.
Lightning, like love, is never ruled by logic.
Lately, she’s been wondering if perhaps when the living become the dead they leave an empty space behind, a hollow no one else can fill.
You lose people sometimes, you know. You don’t expect to, but then it happens and you can’t get them back.