Quotes from Sara Zarr

don't mistake a new place for a new you.

Don't ask me how I am,' I blurt. 'Please.' I want to keep feeling good. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean I have to look.

What brings two people together anyway?

It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I'm sorry, to say it's okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then… and then. Who knew?

It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.

I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there's stuff you don't know, can't know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I'm convinced there are parts of myself inside them.

I don't yell back at my mother. When I'm angry or scared or upset, I don't yell. I stay quiet. I've seen how she is, how she would get with Kent and with me and with other people, life if someone at the pharmacy got in the wrong line or asked too long a question, or if someone on the bus accidentally bumped her. I've watched her my whole life, the way people react to her. It doesn't actually help you get what you want, yelling and being like that. It only makes people think bad of you.

Sometimes you want to hear your own mother's voice.

A know a place called New Beginnings, but I don't think it works quite like that. You can't just erase everything that came before.

I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.

In a way, "failure" is just another word for "the journey," for not being there yet but on the way. It's the road we walk on to get wherever it is we're trying to go.

Life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong, and complaints about the world around you.

The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he'd done for me and what we'd been through together, even if that loyalty was a ghost.

This was a memory I wanted to keep, whole, and recall again and again. When I was fifty years old I wanted to remember this moment on the porch, holding hands with Cameron while he shared himself with me. I didn't want it to be something on the fringes of my memory like so many other things about Cameron and myself.

Because love, love never finishes.

Ethan couldn't possibly understand it, what Cameron and I meant to each other and how different it was from anything like a romance or a crush.

Sometimes trust isn't something you can just choose to do even if it makes sense. All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn't abandoned me, is me.

There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.

Was it only because he happened to be the one who came along when he did? Could it have been anyone? Or was there something about him, that I liked and cared at?

I tried his cell over and over but he never answered. Then I'd call just to hear his voice on the outgoing message, until eventually that was gone too.

Okay, then, what was he like? Just give me something to go on so that I have a shot at him!' 'A shot at him? Are you on an elk hunt?

Some people come into your life and leave a mark.

Love is just a word we use to describe what boils down to a selfish and temporary state of happiness.

This is the last time, the girl thought, that she would remember these things. If they floated back to her again, she would paddle away. When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.