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101 " Don’t you find it strange that whenever anyone asks you to describe yourself, you draw a blank? It should be the easiest thing in the world to talk about – I mean, you are you – but it isn’t. "
― Krystal Sutherland , Our Chemical Hearts
102 " Well, now that I know you’re judging me, I’m not going to be able to pick anything.”“That’s what getting to know someone is about. Judging them. "
103 " But I …kinda suck at telling stories when they’re not on paper.”“So you draft everything? Filter everything?”“Well, it sounds depressing when you say it like that, but yeah. I guess.”“That sucks. You lose the rawness, the truth of who you are if you pass everything through a screen first. "
104 " Give me the unedited draft of why you’ve never had a girlfriend. Blurt it out.”“Because… So many reasons. Because I’m seventeen. Because I don’t mind being alone. I like it actually. I’ve been surrounded by teenagers who are always in and out of these dramatic, toxic relationships and that’s never held any appeal for me. I want what my parents have. Extraordinary love.”“You understand that you’re missing out on a lot of awesome stuff by choosing to be that way, though, right? Sometimes you don’t know things are going to be extraordinary until they are. "
105 " A friend brought me here years ago, when we were kids. We were both troublemakers and breaking in here made us feel like rebels. We used to come here all the time and talk for hours. Now I come here whenever I want to be reminded of how insignificant I am in the grand scale of the universe.”“Sounds like lots of fun.”“Space is the best cure for sadness that I know.”“Feeling insignificant isn’t exactly a great cure for unhappiness.”“Hell yeah it is. When I look into the night sky, I remember that I’m nothing but the ashes of long-dead stars. A human being is a collection of atoms that comes together into an ordered pattern for a brief period of time and then falls apart again. I find comfort in my smallness. "
106 " You’re supposed to be terrified of oblivion, same as the rest of us.”“The best thing the universe ever gave us is that we’ll all be forgotten. "
107 " I wondered, in that moment, if it was possible for human beings to go supernova – my atoms felt like they were emitting a shock wave of heat and light as they came unstuck from each other. "
108 " …thinking of Grace Town and how, if people really were assembled from pieces of the universe, her soul, her soul was made of stardust and chaos. "
109 " I don’t know anything about you and you won’t even tell me when I ask.”“You know my favourite song and my favourite colour.”“We aren’t in kindergarten. I want to know real things about you. I want to know the shit stuff too.”“There’s more beauty in mystery.”“I don’t want you to be a mystery.”“Yes, Henry. You do. "
110 " Grace was a lost soul, a ghost adrift, the human embodiment of second-hand smoke. "
111 " You can’t project your fantasies onto people and expect them to play the part, Henry. People aren’t empty vessels for you to fill up with your daydreams. "
112 " I wish you could see the world the way I see the world. See that death is the reward for having lived. "
113 " Do you know why she left?”“Because she’d fallen out of love with him. The chemical reaction receded. That’s why. That’s all. Love is never perfect, Henry. "
114 " God. Why does anyone do this more than once?”“Fall in love?”“Biologically speaking? For the continuation of the human race. Logically speaking? Because the journey is beautiful in the beginning. "
115 " I don’t know if I can accept that it was all a waste of time, though. That all this pain was for nothing. That what we had was never real.”“Aren’t you listening, doofus? Love doesn’t need to last a lifetime for it to be real. You can’t judge the quality of a love by the length of time it lasts. Everything dies, love included. Sometimes it dies with the person, sometimes it dies on its own. The greatest love story ever told doesn’t have to be about two people who spent their whole life together. It might be about a love that lasted two weeks or two months or two years, but burned brighter and hotter and more brilliantly than any other love before or after. Don’t mourn a failed love; there’s no such thing. All love is equal in the brain.”“Doesn’t stop from hurting. "
116 " Maybe it was possible to love two different versions of someone at the same time. And maybe, just maybe, some people still anted redemption for sins they didn’t need absolved anymore. "
117 " But something can only be shattered so many times before it becomes irreparable, just as a piece of paper can only be folded so many times before it cannot be folded anymore. "
118 " Why is it, I thought, that we’re so willing to hurt the ones we care about the most? "
119 " All the ties that had connected us slowly snapped and healed, until we were separate entities once more. Until I remembered her only when an ache of longing throbbed through me: on New Year’s Eve when the fireworks went off, when I watched movies by myself in the dark, but mostly when I woke up in the morning and she wasn’t there. And all the while I loved her, just as she loved him. In secret, between the shadow and the soul. "
120 " Drinking before football is going to be 95% of my strategy. And the other 5%? 1% pure, unadulterated athletic talent. 4% luck. "