The Sun Is Also a Star

There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.

Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.

We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.

Sometimes your world shakes so hard, it's difficult to imagine that everyone else isn't feeling it too.

Stars are important," I say, laughing. "Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it's our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.

I don't believe in love." "It's not a religion," he says. "It exists whether you believe in it or not.

I didn't know you this morning, and now I don't remember not knowing you.

The thing about falling is you don't have any control on your way down.

Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either.

How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?

We have big, beautiful brains. We invent things that fly. Fly. We write poetry. You probably hate poetry, but it’s hard to argue with ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ in terms of sheer beauty. We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.

I wonder if she realizes how passionate she is about not being passionate.

People just want to believe. Otherwise they would have to admit that life is just a random series of good and bad things that happen until one day you die.

The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it's a long way down.

People make mistakes all the time. Small ones, like you get in the wrong checkout line. The one with the lady with a hundred coupons and a checkbook. Sometimes you make medium-sized ones. You go to medical school instead of pursuing you passion. Sometimes you make big ones. You give up.

I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that's God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us.

It's not up to you to help other people fit you into a box.

I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don't want to love him. I really don't. As strategies go, it's not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words.

Observable Fact: I don't believe in magic. Observable Fact: We are magic.

I love this part of getting to know someone. How every new piece of information, every new expression, seems magical. I can't imagine this becoming old and boring. I can't imagine not wanting to hear what she has to say.

Do you think it's funny that both of our favourite memories are about the people we like the least now?" I ask. "Maybe that's why we dislike them," she says. "The distance between who they were and who they are is so wide, we have no hope of getting them back.

We're kindling amid lightning strikes, a lit match and dry wood, fire danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned.

It’s hard trying to hold on to a place that doesn’t want you.

Some people exist in your life to make it better. Some people exist to make it worse.

The universe stops and waits for us.

If people who were actually born here had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country.

I know there’s no such thing as meant-to-be, and yet here I am wondering if maybe I’ve been wrong.