“You get use to someone—start to like them, even—and they leave. In the end, everyone leaves.”
“Life's not that simple. Not so easy to move on when the anger you've got is what keeps you going.”
“Nothing makes any sense. Nothing means anything. You're born, you live, you die. That's it.”
“Part of me wanted this more than anything else in the world—to have someone to hang out with, be like everyone else for a while. The rest of me screamed to get the hell out of there, not to get sucked in.”
“And just when I though things were starting to get better, everything had gone wrong again.”
“And then, a strangely comforting thought trickled through me—I had nothing, so I could do anything now. Anything I wanted. I had nothing left to lose.”
“People just don't seem to get me. Don't understand that I need my space. Always telling me what to do. They think rules and routines and clean hands and your p's and q's will make everything all right. They haven't got a clue.”
“I don't understand, Jem. I don't understand why you'd leave me. Why would you that?”
“You're mental. I always knew you were.”
“Do you know what it's like to hear those words? To hear the person you love telling you they love you, too? If you don't now, I hope you do one day.”
“If you’ve found someone who loves you – that’s the most important thing of all. If you’ve got that, then you should appreciate every damn second with them.”
“Are you the same? Is it only afterward that you think of what you should have said, the killer response,the put-down that would make them stay put down?”
“Todos sabemos que todo tendrá fin algún día, pero no podemos dejar que eso nos frene. No debemos dejar que nos impida vivir.”
“We know it, but chose forget it. Is too much hard to bear. Yesterday, you made me realize that: we chose forget.”
“Spider?” I’d said, with a question mark in my voice.
“Yeah.”
“You know at school . . . what did you do that for? Wade in like that?”
Spider frowned. “He was disrespectful, Jem. What you said—I could tell it was real. It was what you were really feeling. He had no right to make a joke of it.”
“Yeah, I know, he’s a tosser, but it’s nothing to do with you. You made a right show of yourself. You made a show of me.”
“I didn’t want him to get away with it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I can look after myself.” He was smiling a bit now. I paused. “It’s not funny, man. It’s made everything worse,” I said quietly. “I’ve got comments all the time now, ‘bout you and me. Sly comments.”
He looked away, studied his hands. The knuckles on the right one were nearly healed up now.
My mouth had gone dry, but I had to get this clear with him. “You do know there’s no ‘you and me,’ don’t you, Spider?”
He looked up. “What?”
“We’re not like . . . together. Just mates.”
There was something about his sullenness when he said, “Yeah, ‘course. Just mates. Mates is good,” that made me think he felt the exact opposite. I was churning inside, cursing that day under the bridge. People were so bloody difficult. Why had I ever got involved?
He stood up, came toward me, putting an arm out. I thought, Shit, he’s going to hug me. Hasn’t he listened to anything? But his hand formed a fist, and he lightly punched my arm. “Listen, man, I know what you’re like. I’ve told you I’ll never say nothing nice to you. And now you’ve put my straight, I’ll never do nothing nice for you, either. OK? If someone disrespects you, I’ll let them. If you’re being mugged on the street, I’ll walk on by. If I see you on fire, I won’t even piss on you. OK?”
“Sometimes, when things are confusing, we try and make sense of it our own way; we find ways of coping up.”
“ " But we are starting again, Jem. If I hadn't met you, it probably would have been dope and pills and smoking crack and shooting up junk. Prison. Hospitalization. That's how it would have been for me, but you saved me from that. It's going to be different for us now." ”
“ "Are you awake?" I whispered, my voice nearly disappearing in the darkness of the huge barn.
"Yeah."
"I'm freezing."
"I know. Me, too" A pause. A long, long pause. "Come here, then." ”
“No se puede escapar a la muerte: al final siempre te alcanza.”
“ I reached up and cupped the back of his neck and drew him down to me, and we kissed again. ”
“Bloody Mike Tyson'd have trouble with you.”
“ Lovers, yes, we're lovers now.”
“Allí de rodillas lo abracé, le acaricié la espalda y el pelo y ambos lloramos juntos. No había palabras para expresar lo que sentíamos; las lágrimas lo decían por nosotros: el terror, el alivio, el amor y la pena todo mezclado en la sal.”
“People have always been good at imagining the end of the world, which is much easier to picture than the strange sidelong paths of change in a world without end.”
“All of that was eventually shown—there’s considerable adult neuro-genesis in the hippocampus (where roughly 3 percent of neurons are replaced each month) and lesser amounts in the cortex.22 It happens in humans throughout adult life. Hippocampal neurogenesis, for example, is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injuryfn9 and inhibited by various stressors.fn10,23 Moreover, the new hippocampal neurons integrate into preexisting circuits, with the perky excitability of young neurons in the perinatal brain. Most important, new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas, something called “pattern separation.”
“This entire time I've been closing myself off from love., but it's been the solution all along. I've built walls at every turn. No more.”
“Flowers magnetize us with their beauty and reflect back to us our own essence. Their qualities magnify positive aspects of ourselves. They serve as messengers to remind us of the preciousness of life at the most crucial times of our lives. Flowers are doing this for us all the time, and all we have to do is pay attention.”
“With the amount of diazepam in me, I should have been content to lie back and let events unfold as they may, and my curiosity did for a moment consider it, but then a punch of panic reminded me that people far saner than I were murdered for less in more conspicuous locations.”
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