The Love That Split the World

Love is giving the world away, and being loved is having the whole world to give.

And when you see those good things--and I promise you, there are so many good things--they're going to be so much brighter for you than they are for other people, just like the abyss always seems deeper and bigger when you stare at it. If you stick it out, it's all going to feel worth it in the end. Every moment you live, every darkness you face, they'll all feel worth it when you're staring light in the face.

Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back.

There’s nothing scarier than hearing someone you love cry, except imagining a world where that sound stops. Suddenly I can’t breathe. Can’t be here. There’s nothing scarier than loving someone.

Recognizing someone as a part of you before they've even become that person in your life, and knowing, without a doubt, that neither of you will ever be who are you in this exact moment ever again and believing, against all odds, you will continue to belong to one another despite that.

Just because you don't know what you want yet, it doesn't mean that there's nothing to want.

Rachel,” I snap, “I don’t care if Janelle wants to work at Hooters. I don’t care if you and the rest of the world want to go spend your money on dried-out chicken and ketchup-based sauces. And least of all—less than almost anything else I can imagine—I don’t care how much sex your sister is or isn’t having. That’s kind of the deal with the whole uptight feminazi thing—we don’t care when other women want to wear stupid orange Soffe shorts with white tennis shoes and have a lot of sex, or when they want to wear habits and live in a convent, or if they want to walk around in pasties and never French kiss, so long as they’re allowed to do what they want. And right now, all I want is to go to bed. Okay?

Why did they have to sacrifice anything?” “It was a symbol,” Grandmother explains. “Of an innocent dying on behalf of someone else—the greatest act of love. A choice to die so someone else doesn’t have to.

No matter how hard it feels, you don't need to be afraid to move on, and you don't need to be afraid to stay either. There's always more to see and feel.

It wouldn't matter," he says. "If we were in the same world, the one where Kincaid was in love with you, I'd still be here. If you wanted me, I'd be here." "Why?" I ask. He hides a grin and runs his thumb over my lips. "I'm not sure the world and me are as complicated as you think, Natalie. I didn't mean to choose you or anything. I just know if I only get to build one porch in my life, I'd like it to be yours, and if there's one person I never have to hurt or disappoint, I'd want that to be you too.

Sometimes you change your mind about a person. Or your feelings for them change, or they change, or, I don't know, you just want to make a different decision. And that's always okay. You don't owe anyone anything.

And because she jumped, our world began

She may be a bitch, but she's a genuine bitch with a heart

Growing up is going to hurt. Only you can decide if the pain is worth the love.

We may be different, but in this moment we're feeling the exact same thing: the sad kind of bliss where you realize, suddenly, how perfect your life really has been all along. So perfect it hurts, and you could let yourself weep if you wanted. So perfect that even though everything you know is ending, you truly believe life will continue to be beautiful, even—or maybe especially—in those pure moments of loss.

It's true that nothing has the potential to hurt so much as loving someone, but nothing heals like it either.

Beau, what is it you want?" "A porch," he says softly. He says it like it's my name, and right then, I think, what both of us want more than anything is something we can never have. "All I really want is to build a house with a nice, big porch that gets used every day.

I’m getting my things for class when I feel a pair of hands slide down around my eyes. “Guess Who.” “Harry Styles?” “So close it’s insane.” “Okay, give me a clue.” “I’m one of your biggest fans.” “I’m having a hard time, because the only thing that’s coming to mind other than Harry Styles is the ghost of River Phoenix, and I wouldn’t be able to feel his hands.

I don't love Beau yet, I don't think. But being with him feels like a better version of being alone, and in that way, I think we are each other's.

If you want the good, you can't give up.

And then one day, our parents look at us and notice we’re whole people. We’re not a part of them anymore, even if they’re a part of us. And for the ones who never really wanted to be parents anyway, that’s probably a relief.

I twist my fingers through his hair, press my lips to his cheek. The words tangle in my throat, being born and dying a thousand times. I love you.

...I'd realized how much I'd always love someone at the same moment I realized that person and I might never fit together again.

No story is truer than any other story that has the truth in its heart

Being around people is exhausting. Being around Beau is like a really good version of being alone, as easy but more fun.

God is a thing I know when I see, and I see It all over, in Megan, in the night sky and the morning sun, and especially in Grandmother.

The way to make the best decisions is to listen to all the stories and to know them by heart and to feel them in your bones

For a moment we're both silent, staring. I wonder if either of us really sees the other clearly anymore or if we stuck looking at the frozen images of who we used to be.

Dance used to do that for me too: a place where there was nothing to do but be me and let everything else fall away. For a lot of the girls on the team, it was all about the performance, but for me, I think it was always about communication.