I had mistaken feeling for feeling unhappy.
You are pretty much the only thing that wants me to walk up in the morning.
Some mistakes... just have greater consequences than others. But you don’t have to let that night be the thing that defines you. You have the choice not to let that happen.
She could show her daughter that there was another way to live. A way that did not involve anesthetizing yourself. A way that did not mean you lived your whole life as an apology for who you were.
Why do you think nobody writes love letters like these anymore?” she says instead, pulling one from her bag. “I mean, yes, there are texts and e-mails and things, but nobody sends them in language like this, do they? Nobody spells it out anymore like our unknown lover did.
As if something’s missing. I feel as if there’s some puzzle to which I don’t hold all the pieces. Does that sound terribly silly?
You get to see the world in a whole new way. And then you have that beautiful picture burned onto the inside of your head. To carry it wherever you go and never forget it.
I felt suddenly, unbearably tired. I felt this peculiar urge to say sorry, and I wasn’t sure what for.
We move on always carrying with us those we have lost. What we aim to do in our little group is ensure that carrying them is not a burden that feels impossible to bear, a weight keeping us stuck in the same place. We want their presence to feel like a gift.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
This time the silence was painful. I heard my voice slowly swallowed by it, and couldn’t work out what to do with my hands.
It’s not a matter of giving you a chance. I’ve watched you these six months becoming a whole different person, someone who is only just beginning to see her possibilities. You have no idea how happy that has made me. I don’t want you to be tied to me.
Those few seconds were the longest I could remember.
That some things are a gift, even if you don’t get to keep them. Maybe just to know that something this beautiful exists is all we can really ask for.
She didn’t actually criticize me – she was too genteel even to raise her voice – but the way she blinked slowly at my responses, her little hmm-hmm, as I spoke, told me everything I needed to know.
There was still beauty in this world, even if some days it took every bit of strength and obstinacy to find it.
Nothing more dangerous than a woman armed with a little knowledge.
Why had I wasted so much time worrying about what was not important?
We want their presence to feel like a gift.
If I let myself love you it would consume me. There would be nothing but you. I would be constantly afraid that you might change your mind. And then, if you did, I would die.