I take something that happened to me in 1983, and I make it happen to somebody else in 1943. I pick my life apart that way, try to understand it better by writing straight through it.
Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing you had to do to knock some sense into yourself? Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing that showed you which way was up?
He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.
She saw him after seventh hour in a place she’d never seen him before, carrying a microscope down the hall on the third floor. It was at least twice as nice as seeing him somewhere she expected him to be.
The first time he’d held her hand, it felt so good that it crowded out all the bad things. It felt better than anything had ever hurt.
Nothing was dirty. With Park. Nothing could be shameful. Because Park was the sun, and that was the only way Eleanor could think to explain it.
She was tired of being the one who cried.
Don’t make me angry-kiss you.
Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy.
Cath wished she didn’t use the word “just” so much. It was her passive-aggressive tell, like someone who twitched when they were lying.
Don’t bite his face, Eleanor told herself. It’s disturbing and needy and never happens in situation comedies or movies that end with big kisses.
Love. Purpose. Those are things that you can’t plan for. Those are things that just happen.
A landline is an anchor – busy signals, long distance bills, missed connections and all.
I wrote all four of my books at Starbucks.
I’m not complaining about my cell phone – all my friends are in there, and all my favorite songs and all my favorite Benedict Cumberbatch GIFs; I don’t want to give it up. But cell phones are the worst for talking on the phone.
He tried to remember how this happened – how she went from someone he’d never met to the only one who mattered.
I tend to write about my anxieties – it’s what I’m afraid will happen. And I write a story working it out.
She’d majored in English, hoping that meant she could spend the next four years reading and writing. And maybe the next four years after that.
I don’t know if I even believe in that anymore. The right guy. The perfect guy. The one. I’ve lost faith in “the”. How do you feel about “a” and “an”? Indifferent. So you’re considering a life without articles?
People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.
This is why I can’t be with Levi. Because I’m the kind of girl who fantasizes about being trapped in a library overnight-and Levi can’t even read.