❝ We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

❝ There are 7 billion people on this planet who I have not met,
and 195 countries I have not visited.
Yet I am stuck in this insignificant town,
Being pressured into making decisions about my future,
When I barely even know who I am.

❝ And then one student said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can’t even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead of under them, although try to sleep is probably more accurate. And then at some point late, late, late at night, say just a bit before dawn, the heat finally breaks and the night turns into cool and when you briefly wake up, you notice that you’re almost chilly, and in your groggy, half-consciousness, you reach over and pull the sheet around you and just that flimsy sheet makes it warm enough and you drift back off into a deep sleep. And it’s that reaching, that gesture, that reflex we have to pull what’s warm - whether it’s something or someone - toward us, that feeling we get when we do that, that feeling of being sad in the world and ready for sleep, that’s happiness.

❝ When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world - profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence.

❝ She was bored. She loved, had capacity to love, for love, to give and accept love. Only she tried twice and failed twice to find somebody not just strong enough to deserve it, earn it, match it, but even brave enough to accept it.

❝ I am tired of knowing nothing and being reminded of it all the time.

❝ Of all the people you have kissed she was your favourite because she didn’t flinch when you curled your hand around her neck and tightened.
She said “I break the law because I’ve never broken a heart and I want to know what it feels like to be the brick not the window pane”.
When she’s drunk she’ll dress up for you, all straps & lace & stockings. When she’s high she’ll dress down for you, all skin & skin & skin.

❝ The worst part about being strong is that no one ever asks if you’re okay.

❝

More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone.

More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if I wasn’t alone. I have tried many times, tried to kill my loneliness with a girl or a woman, and it was never right. We would be together and be close to each other, but no matter how close we were, I still felt alone. They felt that loneliness and it made them want to get closer. When they tried, I either ran or did something to destroy what we felt for each other. I can run fast when I want to run fast, and I’ve always been good at destroying things.

❝ I wonder if killing yourself is the only thing you can control in your entire life, and that’s why it’s a sin. Because you’re beating God at his own game.