Quotes from Sara Zarr

We had this time. We had this little bit of time together for being honest. It felt sharp and finite, like it could end any second without warning. I know you want me to be different than I am, I said. But you could have helped me be more of what you wanted by actually talking to me. Telling me things.

And, to our collective surprise, it turned out that for a person who doesn't like people, I'm pretty good at this customer service stuff.

Why do you want to come in?' Because I'm lonely, I think. Why does anyone ever want to be with another person?

He said I didn't need to save him.' 'But you want to.' 'Yeah. But I can't. Right?' 'Probably not. Usually not.

I've said that if you write, you're a writer. The reverse is also true: if you're a writer, you need to write. Even if you're not achieving certain career or artistic markers on your schedule, you'll be self-actualized or in the process of self-actualizing, and that's what helps equip you to give back to the world in a variety of ways.

When I'm at my best, my writing identity comes from a deep and quiet place where the noise of approval and disapproval is a neutral background landscape more than a declaration of who I am. Conversely, the times I feel the worst about being a writer are when I'm looking for likes, fishing for approval, or otherwise in search of evidence that I'm somebody, because I've momentarily forgotten I already am.

And I understood being made to feel guilty for things that weren't your fault.

That crazy kind of laughing that feels almost the same as crying.

They wanted to be different, but there was no one to show them how.

She's the only one who knows. Knows what? What it's like to be us.

Can it really be love if we don't talk that much, don't see each other? Isn't love something that happens between people who spend time together and know each other's faults and take care of each other? ... In the end, I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the colour and shape of love. That's the unfinished business between us. Because love, love is never finished.

You are beautiful, Lucy. Inside and out. And that hurts, too. It hurts more specifically. More personally.

When Dad & I used to tell each other to try a little tenderness we meant calm down, be soft, stop having to be right, give a person the benefit of the doubt for a change.

Her door is cracked only a tiny bit, and her room is dark. Through the crack I can see her legs on the bed and hear her crying. Not like the big sobbing you do when something tragic and unexpected happens. It's the quiet kind of crying that can go for hours, when over and over again you try to stop, try to tell yourself it's going to be okay, but another part of yourself can't stop thinking about the thing that's breaking your heart.

And when you can't stand yourself, you don't want people around who are constantly saying how much they love you, because you know you don't deserve it.

The American dream is kind of stupid, anyway. Slave ninety percent of your life so that you can spend the last ten percent of it doing nothing? And there's no guarantee you even make it far enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Look at the state of the world. At this rate it's all going to implode any second, anyway, and you could...die unexpectedly. So you should do what makes you happy.

All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn't abandoned me, is me.

I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love. that's the unfinished business between us. Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

Das wird sich alles finden. Everything will be okay.

Your greatest creation is your creative life. It's all in your hands. Rejection can't take it away; reviews can't take it away. The life you create for yourself as an artist, may be the only thing that's really yours. Create a life you can center yourself in calmly as you wait for your work to grow.

Why do we drag around like life is so awful?' Why did they forget that there was so much to love?

I couldn't see beyond the walls of our apartment or the few miles between home and school. Every day was about getting through it. Every weekend was about getting back to school, where there could be some structure and my routines.

Kip is still one of my best friends. When you have a shared experience with someone who showed you some kindness when you needed it most, it sticks with you.

Right now I would love to have a personal message from God. I want to believe the way I used to, when my dad or mom or sometimes both of them would pray with me at night and I would picture God listening, kind-eyed and bearded. He was real to me, as real as my own parents. I don't know when God stopped being someone I saw as my true friend, and turned into something I'm mostly confused about.