“We can know what love is. It´s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure Love. Love without compromise or distraction.”

Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world.

I suddenly realize that I’m naked, which shouldn’t bother me since it’s the phone, but for some reason it does. “How’s it hanging?” Kyra asks and now I think I’m blushing. It’s just an expression, but jeez!

…She’s not buying [the lie], but there’s nothing else on the shelves.

See, forgiveness doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not an event – it’s a process.

And it’s true. It’s so true. All those years of loving Zik because he never asked about Eve… I never realized, I never understood. It was his job as my best friend not to ask. But it was my job as his best friend to tell him without being asked.

A river of images and thoughts and feelings, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging.

. . . but there’s a restraining order in place.’ She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. ‘I’m not supposed to be this close to you.’ You were never supposed to be this close to me,’ I say, and I have no idea why.

What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster?

(Man, I wish life had emoticons, you know? So that when your dad pisses you off you could like click a mental button or something and just show him one of those rolleyes. That would rock) Anyway.

And I think of nothing. I think of nothing but Rachel. What happens next is pure magic, and is for us and us alone.

He moved to run a hand through her cornrows, then pulled back remembering the one time he’s tried that-Connie had lectured him on the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not touch thy black girlfriend’s hair. Ever.

And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we’re us.

At the end of the day, it’s a series of individual challenges played out against a team defense. It’s a psersonal test every time I step into the batter’s box: Can I do better than the last time? And that’s why I love it.

I don’t know and I don’t care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it. I want to kill them all. no, better yet, I want to die. No, even bettter than that: I want to kill them all then die.

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.

I just have an allergic reaction to lung cancer. Gives me tumors.

All Buddhas preach emptiness. Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness, he betrays all Buddhas.

He felt warm and familiar. He felt solid and safe. I wanted to cling to his shirt, bury my face into the warm curve of his neck, and never let go.

Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation – this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.

One clings to life although there is nothing to be called life; another clings to death although there is nothing to be called death. In reality, there is nothing to be born; consequently, there is nothing to perish.

Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

A fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.

As drivers desert the city I find myself clinging more and more to my father’s belief that a man without a car is not really a man.