“Everyone cares when it’s too late.”

“I’m not everything I want to be, but I’m more than I was, and I’m still learning.”

“We cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever. We must stand up and move on to the next action.”

“I never expected her. Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know you ever lived without them.”

“If you can love the wrong one so much, just imagine how much you can love the right one.”

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

“I like the scars because I like the stories. Bravery, stupidity, pain—none of them come free.”