An Abundance of Katherines

Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.

What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?

You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.

I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.

Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou

That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.

There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.

If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

What matters to you defines your mattering.

Because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you.

How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?

That smile could end wars and cure cancer.

you can never love someone as much as you miss them.

I don't think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost.

The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.

It's just that I learned a while ago that the best way to get people to like you is not to like them too much.

We fatties have a bond, dude. It's like a secret society. We got all kinds of shit you don't know about. Handshakes, special fat people dances-we got these secret fugging lairs in the center of the earth and we go down there in the middle of the night when all the skinny kids are sleeping and eat cake and friend chicken and shit. Why d'you think Hollis is still sleeping, kafir? Because we were up all night in the secret lair injecting butter frosting into our veins. ...A fatty trusts another fatty.

Do you know what your problem is? You can't live with the idea that someone might leave.

I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. But he wasn't crying. Curiously, he felt too depressed to cry. Too hurt. It felt as if she'd taken the part of him that cried.

They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter.

Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?

Dude, you're such a geek. And that's coming from an overweight Star Trek fan who scored a 5 on the AP Calculus test. So you know your condition is grave

You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards trying to matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.

Babies are made through an act that you will eventually find intriguing but for right now will just sort of horrify you, and also sometimes people do stuff that involves baby-making parts that does not actually involve making babies, like for instance kiss each other in places that are not on the face.

I don't think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing.

The feeling of loving her and being loved by her welled up in him, and he could taste the adrenaline in the back of his throat, and maybe it wasn't over, and maybe he could feel her hand in his again and hear her loud, brash voice contort itself into a whisper to say I-love-you as if it were a secret, and an immense one.

You know what I hate? The outdoors. I mean, generally. I don't like outside. I'm an inside person. I'm all about refrigeration and indoor plumbing and Judge Judy.

Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together." What?" Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud." That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of." The people who've been in your secret hiding places." The people you bite your thumb in front of." Hi." Hi." ..." ..." Wow. My first Lindsey." My second Colin." That was fun. Let's try it again." Sold." ..." ..." ..." ...