Tiffanie DeBartolo · 415 pages
Rating: (13.7K votes)
“Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.”
“Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.”
“Break my heart? Is that what you just said? I have news for you; you didn't break my heart. My heart's fine. My heart's in the best shape of its life. You know what you did to me? You took an AK-47 and blew my soul open.”
“Tell me what you listen to, and I'll tell you who you are.”
“There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.”
“There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can’t. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It’s our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it’s time to throw in the towel. Sometimes a person has to die in order to live. Deep down, I know you know this. You just can’t seem to do anything about it. I guess it’s a sad fact of life that some of us move on and some of us inevitably stay behind. Only in this case I’m not sure which one of us is doing which. You were right about one thing though. It’s not fate. It’s a choice. And who knows, maybe we’ll meet again someday, somewhere up above all the noise. Until then, when you think of me, try and remember the good stuff. Try and remember the love.”
“I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.”
“Fate is the magnetic pull of our souls toward the people, places, and things we belong with.”
“It sounds silly, I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie.
Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.
And sometimes, when you're trying to find your way, one of those gods actually shows up and gives you directions.”
“Eliza has the sky in her eyes and I’ve always wanted to touch the goddamn sky.”
“I am of the theory that all of our transcendental connections, anything we're drawn to, be it a person, a song, a painting on a wall--they're magnetic. The art is the alloy, so to speak. And our souls are equipped with whatever properties are required to attract that alloy. I'm no scientist so I don't really know what the hell these properties are, but my point is we're drawn to stuff we've already got a connection to. Part of the thing is already inside of us.”
“Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE - not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing.”
“Note to self: Always remember how lucky you are to wake up next to someone who thinks you're the shit.”
“For what it's worth, I think happiness is a fleeting condition, not a permanent state of goddamn mind. I've learned that if you chase after moments of bliss here and there, sometimes those moments will sustain you through the shit.”
“Fate is just another word for people's choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our hands.”
“I hate that word, CAN’T. I wish it had never been dreamed
up, spoken, or defined. I wish the concept of CAN’T could be
eradicated not only from language, but more importantly from
the psyche of a girl who I know is filled with so much CAN it seeps out of her pores and scents the air.”
“There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a person over and over every time you lay eyes on them, especially when you hate their goddamn guts”
“I've got my girl and my guitar, and for me that's enough.”
“See that?" Paul said. "Ten goddamn seconds."
"I don't get it."
"You didn't even have to hear the whole song, just a few lines, and you got the chills and that swirly, happy-sad feeling in your gut, didn't you?" ... "That's the difference between the real stuff and the crap. I know which one you are and you know which one I am.”
“And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.”
“Swear to God, for someone so obsessed with music, she’s borderline tone deaf. But trying to describe how I felt watching her dance around and sing would be like trying to build a skyscraper with my bare hands. It made me want to marry her. Made me want to buy her a magic airplane and fly her away to a place where nothing bad could ever happen. Made me want to pour rubber cement all over my chest and then lay down on top of her so that we’d be stuck together, and so it would hurt like hell if we ever tried to tear ourselves apart.”
“Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I had I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost.”
“I need to know that wherever I end up, in the stars or in the gutter, you’re along for the ride.”
“You can’t judge a man solely on his actions. Sometimes actions are nothing more than re actions.” - Loring Blackman”
“I laid it all out for him: Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she's moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn't that the goddamn definition of Love?”
“I know that if I ever have the audacity to blame fate or God for holding a gun to my temple, I also have the wherewithal to remind myself that if I end up with a hole in my head, I was the one who pulled the trigger.”
“In his eyes I saw all the other possibilities. The dream-world possibilities. The fairytale possibilities. The seemingly impossible possibilities.”
“Has the industry done to music what McDonald’s has done to eating?”
“For me, the release was a spot in time with no past and no future. Just the extraordinary simplicity of a moment— the kind of moment that has a funny way of making a person believe that life and love can last forever.”
“The concept of time, as it’s commonly understood by normal
people with normal jobs and normal goddamn lives, doesn’t
exist on the road. The nights spread out like the dark,
godforsaken highways that distinguish them, and the days run
together like Thanksgiving dinner smothered in gravy. You
never really know where you are or what time it is, and the outside
world starts to fade away.
It’s cool.”
“When literacy died, so had history.”
“(One day, when I own a house, I’ll keep a full library of books. Books are different from other possessions—they’re more like friends.)”
“We humans screw up everything in the short time we've got”
“What now? (Shahara)
I’m thinking. (Syn)
Could you think a little quicker? (Shahara)
You’re not helping. (Syn)
You’re lucky you’re still breathing and not limping. (Shahara)”
“It's the girl lost in the forest.
A forest that isn't even there.”
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