4
" We stand there for a moment, staring at each other, savoring it. And then all at once, we slam together. Mia's legs are off the ground, wrapped around my waist, her hands dipping in my hair, my hands tangled in hers. And our lips. There isn't enough skin, enough spit, enough time, for the lost years that our lips are trying to make up for as they find each other. We kiss. The electric current switches to high. The lights throughout all of Brooklyn must be surging. "
― Gayle Forman , Where She Went (If I Stay, #2)
6
" We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, " It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home." Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing. "
13
" The Silence of the Final Goodbye
I knew you best from the silences,
The time and space in between,
The moment before our lips touched,
The way your arms went up in the air before you laughed,
The smile that we shared before we talked,
The redness on your face before your tears,
The sensation of your arms around me after you released the embrace.
The look you gave me before you walked away,
Nothing had ever been so painful,
No words could say what your eyes told me,
When I wake in the morning without you,
It’s the first thing I hear…
The silence of the final goodbye. "
― Jacqueline Simon Gunn
