Along for the Ride

“Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside”

“Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.”

“You couldn't just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn't like a light switch, easy to turn on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out.”

“An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”

“Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.-Maggie”

“It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder

“Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.”

“So maybe it wasn't the fairy tale. But those stories weren't real anyway. Mine were.”

“It didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.”

“But sometimes you lose. Nothing you can do but admit it.-Eli”

“I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?""Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example.""Why not?""Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff.""Like ride bikes?" I said."No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And...""Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?""They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference.”

“It's still a memory worth having, even if it's not exactly what you imagined.”

“He was the closest thing I'd ever had to something, or someone, that mattered. But in the end, close didn't count. You were either in, or you weren't.”

“Who says there has to be a point?" He asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.”

“People don't change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less”

“If you're not getting hurt, you're not riding hard enough.”

“Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.”

“The basic fact is that no, this isnt ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push,so to speak.-Heidi”

“It was so easy to disown what you couldn't recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling. The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself. Which is a lot to be sure of, but at the same time, not enough.”

“What do you do when you finally hear everything you've always thought said aloud?”

“Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose.”

“It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.”

“That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.”

“The truth was, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it.”

“It was so weird, because usually I was totally nervous talking to guys. But Eli was different. He made me want to say more, not less. Which was maybe not a good thing.”

“Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.”

“It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.”

“It was terrible and awful when someone left you. You could move on, do the best you could, but like Eli had said, an ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have to have the last word.”

“Morning would come before we knew it. It always did. But we still had the night, and for now, we were together, so I just closed my eyes and drank it all in.”

“What defines you isn't how many times you crash but the number of times you get back.”