“There are lots of real reasons to decide to leave something or someone, but there are lots of other reasons that are less valid and less real and less about a relationship than our own minds: Fear (of screwing up, of being left, of not being good enough), restlessness, resistance to growing up, PMS, not knowing how to live without drama, fearing that you're getting happy, and happiness is boring. The thing that scared me the most was the knowledge that if I stayed, something was going to change, and that something was probably me. I didn't know what changed me would look like, or if I would like her more or less than I already did. Would I still recognize myself? Would I still be myself?”

“Now I know this is going to seem counter to every instinct that you have, but I'm going to ask you to sit still, or I'll put you in the trunk.”

“All I’m saying is that I don’t want to sort of fall in love with fifty different people. I’d rather find one person and fall completely, deeply in over my head.”

“There’s always a choice,” Lucian reassured her. “Always.” He kissed herforehead softly. “I love you,” he said. He lips trailed down her face, brushing slowly over her nose, across her eyelids. “I would stay with you forever, until the end ofTime.”

“I'm broken, but I have to learn how to live. I feel stuck together with scotch tape, like after any breath everything could come apart. If it does, if it all comes undone, I think I'll fall down and never rise again.”

“Every day is a new beginning, the building of a habit. Every action is a step in some direction. There is no pause in living.”

“Truth: last week I online shopped too much. Then I ate 2 pounds of jelly beans to feel better about that. In fact, while I was trying to read soul-nourishing things all I could think about was shopping and jellybeans. Points to the monkey mind.”

“The road to the heart is not a long, linear path, but this turning. There is no race or competition, just me and God going deeper, carving a canyon to the soul.”

“I was taught growing up not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, to withdraw myself from the sinful 'others'. But we are all others. We are all sinners in someone's eyes.”

“I grew up believing Christians didn’t just believe in Jesus. To be saved, people had to look and speak a certain way. They followed a long list of nots to ensure their holiness. They fit the mold. They followed the rules.”

“I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown.”