The Love Haters

Reading love stories isn’t frivolous. It’s profound. It’s not escape, it’s the opposite. Trust me, and trust yourself: love stories are the best kinds of therapy. They aren’t shallow, they’re deep. Start looking and you’ll see it, too. Love stories make us better at love. In all directions. And getting better at love of course, means getting better at life.

The funny thing about the internet is that it is basically a collective hallucination. If you don't join in, it doesn't exist.

Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time. That’s what life is for.

If you don’t reject the harsh things people say to you, then I guess, at some point, that means you accept them.

The thing you’re afraid of is never the thing you should be afraid of.

People in good relationships had to appreciate each other—say thank you, give compliments, notice what their partner was getting right—in ways that created a cushion of warmth and kindness that eased everything else.

It's called a time horizon- a sense of how much time we have remaining. For teenagers, it's vast. It's infinite. But as we get older, it shortens and shortens- and we can't help but feel it. As it shrinks, it makes everything more precious. We appreciate the days more because there are fewer of them to come. And it's really true. I felt it so much today. How fast it all goes. How much we have to be thankful for. What a miracle each breath is.

We’re here to be alive. To keep going. To find all kinds of ways to thrive anyway. We’re here to feel it all. To love and cry and love some more. We’re here to rescue ourselves - and everybody else - in every way that we can.

People are resilient. We keep going, We find all kinds of ways to thrive anyway.

The story of your life is always full of mystery. You can unfold it on a table like a map, and study it, and understand it in new ways.

She was trying to teach me the rules of being a successful woman as she understood them. And it never occurred to her that women might be able to write those rules for themselves.

She has really let herself go. Maybe that was right. And maybe that was a good thing.

No one’s born fearless,” Rue said. “You have to earn

I was very good at doing what needed to be done. I was good at achieving goals.

No one’s born fearless,” Rue said. “You have to earn it.” Then she added, gesturing at the swimsuit dangling from my hand, “Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time. That’s what life is for.

That longing to be looked at lovingly? That longing to be lovable … that’s really also so much about wanting to be valued, and seen, and connected, and safe, and just deeply, fundamentally okay? Maybe we didn’t have to outsource that. Maybe we could fill that longing for ourselves.

And when a person who’s good at something says that you are also good at that same thing . . . it’s nice.

I should have loved all of my everything. Because it was mine.

but you don’t just have relationships with other people. You have one with yourself, too.

So I couldn’t lay all of my insecurities at Lucas Banks’ feet. Some of them were courtesy of Angela. Some of them came from just being a girl in a world that is appallingly mean to girls. Do any of us escape unscathed?

It was such an odd idea, when you think about it: that I could hurt the world back by hurting myself.

In the past, I’d coped with the meanness by just shutting down—like a little pill bug curling up into a ball.

But I hadn't thought I hated love. I'd thought I was just recovering from it.

Maybe George Bailey was helping me. Maybe that was the deal with this dog. Maybe he was some kind of canine yenta.

The funny thing about the internet is that it’s basically a collective hallucination. If you don’t join in, it doesn’t exist. I mean, it does … but in another very real way, it doesn’t.

But joy is a kind of magic, for sure. And if kissing Hutch at the water’s edge in Mallory Square doesn’t qualify as joy, then there’s nothing on this earth that does.

I won’t say that one kiss fixed every broken thing in my life. But I will say this: having someone stand up for you and then kiss you senseless by the water at sunset is a hell of a thing. Something quiet and forgotten and neglected in my soul got an undeniable dose of healing.

I’m saying that when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. And waiting to see you again. And we’ve spent all day, every day together for weeks now—and it already feels like it’ll never be enough.

You can’t just swim around in this pool with your butt hanging out.

My wish for you,” Rue went on, “is a vibrant, bright, glorious life. That’s why I keep bringing you these vibrant, bright, glorious swimsuits.