Quotes from Jennifer Niven

I didn't know that my life forever changing would be because you loved me and then left, and in such a final way.

It is a new year....It is time to get...back on the camel" -Mr.Black

If I keep ahead of everything, and that includes me, I should be able to stay awake and here, and not just semi-here but here as in present as in now.

The problem with people is that they forget that, most of the time, it's the small things that count.

On all sides of us, spread out below, are little white lights and black pockets of trees. Stars in the sky, stars on the ground. It's hard to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins. I hate to admit it, but it's beautiful.

Every forty seconds, someone in the world dies by suicide. Every forty seconds, someone is left behind to cope with the loss.

I remember her smile and her laugh when I was my best self and she looked at me like I could do no wrong and was whole. I remember how she looked at me the same way even when I wasn't. I remember her hand in mine and how that felt, as if something and someone belonged to me.

I know the way you move. I know the way you look at me. I see you see me, and you're the only one that looks at me that way. Whether I'm with you or away from you, I don't have to think about it or put the puzzle pieces together. It's just you. That's what I know.

By the time I started eating- really eating- the loss was already so big it felt like I was carrying around the world. So carrying around the weight wasn't any heavier. It was trying to carry around both that got to be too much. Which is why sometimes you have to set some of it down. You can't carry all of it forever.

I love: the way her eyes spark when we're talking or when she's telling me something she wants me to know, the way she mouths the words to herself when she's reading and concentrating, the way she looks at me as if there's only me, as if she can see past the flesh and bone and bullshit right into the me that's there, the one I don't even see myself.

Now all I see is someone who's too afraid to get back out there. Everyone around you is going to give you a gentle push now and then, but never hard enough because they don't want to upset Poor Violet. You need shoving, not pushing. You need to jump back on that camel. Otherwise you're going to stay up on the ledge you've made for yourself.

You can't do this to me. You were the one who lectured me about living. You were the one who said I had to get out and see what was right in front of me and make the most of it and not wish my time away and find my mountain because my mountain was waiting, and all that adds up to life. But then you leave. You can't just do that. Especially when you know what I went through losing Eleanor.

Your identifier is you. I remember your eyes. Your mouth. The freckles on both cheeks that look like constellations. I know your smiles, at least three of them, and at least eight of your expressions, including the ones you only do with your eyes. If I could draw, I would draw you, and I wouldn't need to look at you to do it. Because your face is stuck in my mind.

But tonight I'm telling myself I don't have anything in common with this Violet girl, no matter how much I want to, and asking myself if the words between us were really that hot or if maybe it was just me imagining, me in overdrive for a girl I barely know, all because she's the first person I've met who seems to speak my language.

I know the way you move. I know the way you look at me. I see you see me, and you're the only one who looks at me that way. Whether I'm with you or away from you, I don't have to think about it or put the puzzle pieces together. It's just you. That's what I know.

In that moment, I wish I could see it through his eyes. I wish he had glasses to give me.

Better to keep the unhappy, mad, bad, unpleasant words separate, where you can watch them and make sure they don't surprise you when you're not expecting them.

You dress to please yourself. If she doesn't like you for you, then you don't need her.' All of this would be fine if I knew exactly who me for me was.

It's not your fault. And sorry is wastes time. You have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier just to do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for.

I know life well enough to know you can't count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can't stop people from dying. You can't stop them from going away. You can't stop yourself from going away either. I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping.

My body is like a single nerve ending from head to toe. Everything feels alive and more . My heart is opening, like the heart of Rappaccini's daughter, Beatrice, when she meets young Giovanni after he wanders into her garden. As I stand there, I can almost feel it unfold, petal by petal, beat by beat.

This is what i need, i think. A change of scenery.

Overdrive for a girl I barely know, all because she's the first person I've met who seems to speak my language. A few words of it anyway.

And then, because I'm now the one thinking too much, and because she is different from all other girls and because I really, really don't want to screw this up, I concentrate on kissing her on the banks of the Blue Hole, in the sunshine, and I let that be enough.