“I don't need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like... happens.”

“That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it.”

“Grief is a country that has no definite borderlines and that recognises no single trajectory. It is a space that did not exist before your loss, and that will never disappear from your map, no matter how hard you rub at the charcoal lines. You are changed utterly, and your personal geography becomes yours and yours only.”

“Other people don't exist just to be your happy ending, you know?”

“I understand trying to please someone you thinks loves you. To keep that love, you keep twisting and bending yourself to become who they want you to be until you eventually break. There’s a hole in them, a hole they need filled, and they want you to become the circle that will fit into them to make them complete, even though you’re a square. It’s an awful place to be, the person responsible for someone else’s happiness, because being human, we’re going to fail. And by being human, we’ll take the lashing when we never meet expectations.”

“That’s me, keeping things bitchy from open to close.” I turned around and gave him my customer service smile.”

“To be alive and to be a ‘writer’ is enough.”

“A good man buys you tampons when you run out. He does the dishes. He makes you coffee before you're awake in the morning. He listens to you when you're talking, even if it's about home decor. He goes out of his way to touch you, even if it's just your hand. He doesn't call it 'babysitting' when he looks after his own children. He calls you from work just to hear your voice. And he always thinks you're beautiful, even---no, especially---when you don't.”