Quotes from Marisa de los Santos

To understand that you have blown it, that you can never fix it is one of the worst feelings ever.

A real life doesn't mean getting what you want; the achievement, the privilege, too is knowing what you love.

Don't ask for the moon -- we have the stars! Pardon my saying so, but fuck the fucking stars!

You know what I mean. That moment in a relationship in which, at the same time you discover you've been floating in air for 5 and 1/2 weeks you also discover that your feet have dropped a little closer to earth.

Conversationally, we were Fred and Ginger -- spin, slide, shuffle, bend.

But every time, what brought me to my senses was my conviction that before a person dropped a new life into this world, she should probably get a real one herself.

All those films in which the woman doesn't get her man, those films of yearning unsatisfied, hearts unappeased. You like them; I've liked them too. But I'll tell you what: try belonging body and soul to a man who will never belong to you; see how well you like those films then. "Don't ask for the moon-we have the stars!" ... "Pardon me saying so, but fuck the fucking stars!

The sight made her ache. How can I not touch you? she thought hopelessly, and then she was doing it, her fingers on his wrist. He didn't jump or even look at her, just stopped writing. Neither one of them moved, nothing moved, and the whole thing lasted three or four seconds at most, but when Pen took her hand away and started to breathe again, her chest hurt, as though she had been holding her breath for a very long time.

Soldiers in the heat of battle; death-row prisoners; explorers stranded in deserts, jungles, on mountaintops; anyone sick or lost or just tired and bewildered: we all wanted our mothers.

But you're wrong. Happiness is EARNED, like everything else. It's achieved.

Whatever word you use to describe diving into the deepest part of a human. Take your pick; they're all woefully inadequate, but they're also all we have.

I think there are certain people who change the way time moves.

When he looked up, he said, "Clare told me about Christmas." And I swear the boy's face began to shine. I recognized what I saw there: that a person's name could be infinitely precious, that just saying it could make you feel singled out for glory.

My life - my real life - started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and, yes I know how that sounds.

It's ok to feel happy, right? She hoped he'd know what she meant.

Clare wasn't worried anymore about their being mean to each other. She imagined that someday she'd be part of a friendship in which she and the friend thought so highly of each other and were so sure of this that they could say anything.

I've always found allegories kind of comforting. When you encounter people named Liar and Abstinence, you might not be crazy about them, but you know exactly what you're getting into.

In my experience, people love what they love. They just do.

I think love is an imperative. It obligates you.

Linney moves in the world with such firm, certain steps, being with her can make you forget your own confusion, at least for a little while.

if you stay in it for any length of time, like anyplace else, a cafe becomes a world.

He smiled the kind of smile that is the reason for wars and poetry.

Clare concentrated on the words trying hard to press them into her memory and wishing they were solid objects that she could keep and carry around with her.

When it comes to Clare, sometimes, the past isn't past. The past can get as present as any present ever was, so near that I feel its breath.