Quotes from Robyn Schneider

It was about being able to dance like Cassidy did, as though no one was watching, as though the moment was infinite enough without needing to document its existence.

No matter how screwed up your life is today, today is just a collection of moments that stop and start whenever you want them to. And nothing upsetting matters when you know that tomorrow is gonna be better than yesterday

Ezra, the girl you're chasing after doesn't exist. I'm not some bohemian adventurer who takes you on treasure hunts and sends you secret messages. I'm this sad, lonely mess who studies too much and pushes people away and hides in her haunted house.

It was like the part of me that had enjoyed those friends had evaporated, leaving behind a huge, echoing emptiness, and I was scrabbling on the edge of it, trying not to fall into the hole within myself because I was terrified to find out how far down it went.

And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose.

It's like . . . I'm paranoid about people borrowing my laptop because I'm convinced they'll find some secret document on there that would make the whole world think I'm a terrible person—something I don't even remember writing. And it doesn't matter that there's no document like that. I'm still terrified, you know?

The world tends toward chaos, you know," Cassidy said. You could too. Just write down a made up name, or even a fictional character. And the next person who finds this geocache, it's as though things really hapened that way. You have to at least allow for the possibility of it.

You can always tell when it's Friday. There's an excitement specific to Fridays, coupled with relief that another week has passed

Why do they even call it that, "saving yourself"? Like we need to be rescued from sex? It's not like virgins spend their whole lives engaged in the sacred ceremony of "being saved" from intercourse.

I'm not permitted to explain the rules of the game. Nor to acknowledge whether or not we're playing one.

Outwardly mocking, but never quite to the point if not wanting to participate.

No one went looking for adventure; they chased it away.

I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self respect and it's these things I'd believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all that she should be. . . . I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything. —F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

She didn't add the elements that allowed me to proceed down a different path. She lent a spark, perhaps, or tendered the flame, but the arson was mine.

Art is pain. And so is life.

And that was when I saw what Cassidy had done to herself: the gold and red ribbing on her sweater-vest, the matching stripes on her tie, the gray uniform skirt, and the navy blazer draped over her arm... "Is that a Gryffindor tie?" I asked. "And an official Harry Potter Merchandise sweater-vest," she confirmed smugly.

Because the thing about miracles is that they're not answers, no matter how much we want them to be.

I can't say I forgive her for refusing to indulge the perhapsness of what we might have been, but I understand why she chose to do it, and she never asked for my forgiveness.

Now can you rate your pain for me on a scale of one to ten?" But I couldn't. It seemed so wrong to me then that there were only ten options, only ten types of pain. Because I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of types of pain in this world, maybe even thousands. And none of these are numbers on the same scale. They all hurt differently, and amounts have nothing to do with it. They all hurt too much, and not enough.

I have a theory that life is gathering the raw materials, and when we die, we get to make patterns out of our lives and relive them in whatever order we want. That way I can spend forever repeating the days when I was really happy, and never have to experience any of the sad days. So that's how you live a really great life. You make sure you have enough good days that you want to go back to.

And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself.

I made a decision that year, to start mattering in a way that had nothing to do with sports teams or plastic crowns, and the reality is, I might have made that decision without her, or if I'd never fallen in love with a girl who considered love to be the biggest disaster of all.

history is filled with fictional people. We have all been fooled into believing in people who are entirely imaginary - made-up prisoners in a hypothetical panopticon. But the point isn't whether or not you believe in imaginary people; it's whether or not you want to.

But we had plenty of time for youthful indecision, both apart and together, for limping into the future past the unforgettable ash heaps of our histories.