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1 " Don't be ridiculous,' said Maya, 'You can't fail at a relationship. That's like getting off of a roller coaster and saying you failed because the ride is over. Things end. That doesn't mean the experience wasn't worth it. "
― , Out of Love
2 " I watch Maya sipping her tea and I wonder how many women carry the memory of a child nobody knew but them. How many women grieve alone and in silence, without sympathy or ceremony, too afraid or ashamed to speak of their loss? And why should they feel ashamed, or afraid, or alone? Why are there so many others, when this is common, why isn't it something we talk about? And when it happened to my friend, why didn't I know what to do? "
― Hazel Hayes, , Out of Love
3 " I loathe the assumption that I will ‘come to my senses’ someday or — worse still — that my status as non-mother means I’m somehow lacking in emotional range. "
4 " I wondered how much of the feeling of love is chemicals and cravings and dependency, and how much of the act of love is habit. "
5 " We are both wounded in our own way and, like a pair of tectonic plates shifting over time, our wounds will gradually grate against one another’s, causing damage at a glacial pace. Neither of us will notice until it’s too late. "
6 " That moment is what I love most about creating something new: the idea, the spark, the beginning, where what might have been was still what might be. "
7 " I wonder we're all just the product of our parents' fears and failings, and their parents before them. I wonder how far back the cycle goes, whether I'm predisposed to being mentally ill, whether I have any choice in how my life unfolds, or the person that I'm destined to be. You could go mad trying to figure it out. "
8 " Crazy is the space between what they tell you and what you know is true. "
9 " But knowing something and believing are two very different things. "
10 " I was supporting him when I needed support. And I was being made to feel responsible for all his problems. It was a microcosm of our entire relationship. "
11 " I failed,” I said finally.“At what?”“The relationship.”“Don't be ridiculous,” said Maya, “You can't fail at a relation ship. That's like getting off a roller coaster and saying you failed because the ride is over. Things end. That doesn't mean the experience wasn't worth it.”“I'm not sure it was worth it Maya. What did I get out of it?”“You got what you needed," she said. “And then one day it wasn't what you needed any more. "
12 " In the days that followed I thought about grief; how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories but until you experience it for yourself you can't possibly understand. There's no going around it. Or under or over it. You've got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that the you are smacked against the shore. It will fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are permeate very tinged with the knowledge that someone something is missing. And the first time that you smile or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar. "
13 " He was a lot like my father, my ex. They so often are. We choose these men, I'm told, because the pain they cause is familiar and therefore comfortable. How sad is that? "
14 " To this day I struggle to sleep when I’m expecting someone home; some part of me still won’t accept that people who leave will eventually come back. "
15 " No matter how much I learned about death, I wanted to be able to blindly believe in something that might make me feel better, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I feel much the same about the Church as I do about dead bodies – that they can both provide consolation, but only if you're willing to ignore some harsh truths. I find no more comfort from whispering in a dead person's ear than I do from whispering to a made-up God in the dark. Though sometimes I envy the fools who can. "
16 " A breakup is like a death without a funeral. "
17 " I pictured the couple we might someday become. And in my mind, in that moment at least, they lived happily ever after. "
18 " The point is that for a time, I was better, but I wasn’t ‘better’. We really need a better word for better. "
19 " A big thing happened,' she goes on, 'and it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, this has changed things. They may never be the same again. "
20 " Of course, he could just tell me how he's feeling, but that would require self-awareness and communication skills, neither of which Theo possesses. So I settle for speculation. Today he's an enigma; he's gone from ignoring me to crying on me to insulting me to complimenting me to ignoring me again and I don't know what any of it means. My head hurts. "
