01c. 1970 ADThe talks were like blood transfusions, moments of realness and hope that were pinpricks of light in the dark fabric of small-town life.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
02c. 1970 ADIf I stay. If I live. It’s up to me.All this business about medically induced comas is just doctor talk. It’s not up to the doctors. It’s not up to the absentee angels. It’s not even up to God who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now. It’s up to me.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
03c. 1970 ADWillem laughs again. The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it's like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to spread happiness.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
04c. 1970 ADThe sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it's like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to spread happiness.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
05c. 1970 ADWhy wasn't I nicer to Alice? When she has been nothing but sweet to me? When I actually like her? I know I should say something to her, but before I can find the words, she's tooting her horn and disappearing down the street.I wave until she turns the corner. And as I watch another person drive out of here to some better place, I understand exactly why I wasn't nicer.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
06c. 1970 ADLook I accept Adam because you love him. And I assume he accepts me because you love me...your love binds us.'...The funny thing was, I never really bought into Kim's notion that they were somehow bound together through me- until just now when I saw her half carrying him down the hospital corridor.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
07c. 1970 ADYou must not waste your one day here. When the sun shines, you let it shine on you. Snow is always waiting.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
08c. 1970 ADCinders, I would've thought you of all people would know better. There are no wicked stepmothers and there are no fairy godmothers, and there are no Prince Charmings. There in no preordained destiny. You get to decide that. You decide your destiny. - VGayle Forman / quote ↗
10c. 1970 ADHe looks at me and then, reverting to the voice he'd used with Kendra, says, 'If homegirls wanna see me as ghetto trash'--he stops and switches to his lispy, sassy voice--'or big-ass queer'--now he switches to his deepest Shakespeare voice--'I shall not take it upon myself to disabuse them.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
11c. 1970 ADI've hardly taken any pictures on this trip. Melanie teased me about it, to which I always said I preferred to experience something rather than obsessively record it. Though, really, the truth of it was, unlike Melanie (who wanted to remember the shoe salesman and the mime and the cute waiter and all the other people on the tour), none of that really mattered to me. At the start of the trip, I took shots of the sights. The Colosseum. Belvedere Palace. Mozart Square. But I stopped. They never came out very well, and you could get postcards of these things.But there are no postcards of this. Of life.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
13c. 1970 ADTo be, or not to be: that is the question. That’s from Hamlet’s - maybe Shakespeare’s - most famous soliloquy. […] But what if Shakespeare - and Hamlet - were asking the wrong question? What if the real question is not whether to be, but how to be?Gayle Forman / quote ↗
14c. 1970 ADThat they will find each other during the play, once more, in the words of Shakespeare.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
15c. 1970 ADI'd wish you luck, Willem, but I think you need to stop relying on thatGayle Forman / quote ↗
16c. 1970 ADQuitting’s not hard. Deciding to quit is hard. Once you make that mental leap, the rest is easy.”“Really? Was that how you quit me?” And just like that, without thinking, without saying it in my head first, without arguing with myself for days, it’s out there.“So,” she says, as if speaking to an audience under the bridge. “He finally says it.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
17c. 1970 ADeven though I think that Mia and I have enough secrets between the two of us at this pointGayle Forman / quote ↗
18c. 1970 ADSometimes I did feel like I came from a different tribe. I was not like my outgoing, ironic dad or my tough-chick mom. And as if to seal the deal, instead of learning to play electric guitar, I'd gone and chosen the cello.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
22c. 1970 ADThere are monsters all around usThey can be so hard to seehey don't have fangs, no blood-soaked clawsThey look like you and me. But we're not defenselessWe're no damsels in distressTogether we can fend off the attackAll we gotta do is watch our backs.Your body is beautiful how it isWho you love is nobody's business We all contemplate life and deathIt's the poet who gives these thoughtsbreath.The monster is strong, don't be mistakenIt thrives on fear-keeps us isolatedBut together we can fend off its attackAll we gotta do is watch our backs.In your darkest hourWhen the fight's made you wearyWhen you think you've lost your powerWhen you can't see clearlyWhen you're ready to surrenderGive in to the blacklook over your shoulderI've got your back.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
23c. 1970 ADIn a funny way, Dad was always a bow-tie wearer, always a little more traditional than you might imagine. Because even though he had blue hair and tattoos and wore leather jackets and worked in a record store, he wanted to marry Mom back at a time when the rest of their friends were still having drunken one-night stands. "Girlfriend is such a stupid word," he said. "I couldn't stand calling her that. So, we had to get married, so I could call her "wife"'.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
24c. 1970 ADMeg invited me to come again, but I always had reasons why I couldn't: my schedule was busy, bus fare wasn't cheap. Both of which were true, even if they weren't the truth.Gayle Forman / quote ↗
