"And he leans in, so carefully. Breathingand not breathing and hearts beatingbetween us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers“Please.”He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”And he kisses me.His lips are softer than anything I've ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’sso effortlessly sweet.And then it changes.“Oh God—”He kisses me again, this time stronger,desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I've just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind andhe’s looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he’s woken up to find thathis nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay andI’m falling.I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster."

"Marry me, Kiara,” he blurts out in front of everyone.“Why?” she asks, challenging him.“Because I love you,” he says, walking up to her and bending down on one knee while he takes her hand in his, “and I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up seein’ your face every mornin’, I want you to be the mother of my children, I want to fix cars with you and eat your crappy tofu tacos that you think are Mexican. I want to climb mountains with you and be challenged by you, I want to argue with you just so we can have crazy hot makeup sex. Marry me, because without you I’d be six feet under … and because I love your family like they’re my own … and because you’re my best friend and I want to grow old with you.” He starts tearing up, and it’s shocking because I’ve never seen him cry. “Marry me, Kiara Westford, because when I got shot the only thing I was thinkin’ about was comin’ back here and makin’ you my wife. Say yes, chica."

"He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know."

"If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'."

"I threw myself into that fire, threw myself into it, into him, and let myself burn."

"Love, when spelled backwards and read phonetically, reads evil"

"One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind."

"Love, like fire, goes out without fuel."

"Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it."

"I love you more than I hate everything else."

"Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'."

"She's my kitten, and no one else's."

"anyone lived in a pretty how town(with up so floating many bells down)spring summer autumn winterhe sang his didn't he danced his didWomen and men(both little and small)cared for anyone not at allthey sowed their isn't they reaped their samesun moon stars rainchildren guessed(but only a fewand down they forgot as up they grewautumn winter spring summer)that noone loved him more by morewhen by now and tree by leafshe laughed his joy she cried his griefbird by snow and stir by stillanyone's any was all to hersomeones married their everyoneslaughed their cryings and did their dance(sleep wake hope and then)theysaid their nevers they slept their dreamstars rain sun moon(and only the snow can begin to explainhow children are apt to forget to rememberwith up so floating many bells down)one day anyone died i guess(and noone stooped to kiss his face)busy folk buried them side by sidelittle by little and was by wasall by all and deep by deepand more by more they dream their sleepnoone and anyone earth by aprilwish by spirit and if by yes.Women and men (both dong and ding)summer autumn winter springreaped their sowing and went their camesun moon stars rain"

"If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers."

"Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him."

"Just because I'm not forever by your side doesn't mean that's not precisely where I want to be."

"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection."

"So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was substance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream."

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

"But maybe you never really had someone, she thought now. Maybe, no matter how much you loved them, they could slip through your fingers like water, and there was nothing you could do about it."

"Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him."

"No, it's not that. It's not what you're thinking. I was serious when I said 'all of it'. I can remember every moment we were together, and in eachof them there was something wonderful. I can't really pick any one time that meant more than any other. The entire summer was perfect, the kind of summer everyone should have. How could I pick one moment over another? Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it."