Quotes from Deb Caletti

I put the guitar back in the case. I can't even look at it anymore. Instead, I want to make brownies. I want an end result there's a recipe for. I want to combine eggs and water and oil and chocolate and flour and sugar and vanilla and get something fulfilling.

Beaches, music, and car rides—they could all bring on a sudden bout of deep, dreamy thoughts.

Nice isn't the same as good," he said. "People are 'nice' for a million of reasons. 'Nice' is the outside. What people get to see. What you want people to see. 'Good' is the inside. And this is a bad person, C. He's making you a fucking prisoner and your letting him

I grow green beans in my garden. The one thing I know about harvesting them is that you need to train your eyes to see the beans. At first it all looks like leaves, until you see one bean and then another and another. If you want clarity, too, you have to look hard. You have to look under things and look from different angles. You'll see what you need to when you do that. A hundred beans, suddenly.

The most insane things can become normal if you have them around you long enough. A mind can't seem to hold anything too crazy for too long without finding a way to make it seem normal.

She survived something big, and when you survive something big, you are always, always aware that next time you might not.

Another person is, at the heart of it, unknowable. And if you cannot know a person enough to always guess what they're capable of, you certainly cannot know them enough to hold them in your hands, to control their behavior, to fight, manipulate, cajole or nurse or soothe them into doing what they should or shouldn't. People will do what they will do. The trick is admitting your own helplessness about that little fact.

I am beginning to think there are two kinds of people," she said. I waited. "Those who forgive themselves too easily but will not forgive others." "And?" I asked. "Those that forgive others too easily but will not forgive themselves.

In the two months I had also dated Justin Fellowes, this guy in my Spanish class, though after three weeks we decided we should "see other people," which in my case was a joke, but it beat hearing him remark on everything I ate. 'I don't know why girls are always on a diet,' he'd say when I ordered a Diet Coke, and 'You should watch your starch intake' when I had a muffin.

Have you worked here long?" Sebastian asks. Just a few months," I say. "Do you come here a lot?" As if you don't know, Jade. I used to come every day, or, you know, when I could, I'd bring Bo after work. Or just myself." At night sometimes. You'd climb the fence. You'd watch the stars. You'd tilt back your head and look at the sky. You'd think it over, whatever it was.

Sometimes that's all you need. To know it's not broken. To know you're still whole and that you'll heal.

You look so good," I say, and s***! Oh god, that's not what I meant. S***! "It looks good. The book.

Because words were hills and valleys you traveled, so lovely sometimes that they hurt your eyes.

Because that's how it works after something terrible has happened. You know this is true if something terrible has ever happened to you. A thousand objects take on new meaning. Everything is a reminder of something else.

Accents are funny in that they have this odd draw for us, yet we forget we have one, too. No one is without an accent, but the one you've got seems like oatmeal to their caviar.

Hannah and Kayla are talking without saying anything. Their conversation goes like this: Hannah: Uh-huh. Kayla: It was like, ugh! Hannah: I know. Kayla: Shit. Come on! Hannah: Well, you know, whatever. Kayla: I guess, but still. Hannah: Yeah. Kayla: You know? Hannah: Yeah.

It's hard to see clearly when your eyes are squinched tight out of fear.

I mean it's purposeful, even if we don't realize it. The desire to put things in our path, to figure out how to finally leave the behind….

But then there are the van Goghs and Hemingways and Mozarts, those who feel a hunger so deep, so far down, that greatness lies there too, nestled somewhere within it. Those who get their inner voice and direction from the cool mysterious insides of the moon, and not from the earth like the rest of us.

We don't want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you'll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers.

Love." She looked at me with those blue eyes. "Isn't it astonishing how confused and complicated such a small,simple word is? It attracts so many other things, doesn't it, that stick to it like barnacles on rock...fear, guilt. Need. You can't even see the rock anymore. I imagine love in its purest form is a rare thing.

the mind is a tyrant

But my apology was a thousand apologies.

There are so many different fifteens. And eighteens. And forty-twos, for that matter. Mature fifteens and young fifteens and wise fifteens and lost fifteens. And angry fifteens.