Katie Kacvinsky

I'm inlove with him. Completely. Absolutely. Tragically.

I rolled my eyes. "He's talking to himself. My vote is he's crazy." He thought about this. "Maybe he's normal and we're the crazy ones. Maybe everyone should talk to themselves. Maybe we're all just afraid of what we'd say.

Maybe he__ normal and we__e the crazy ones. Maybe everyone should talk to themselves. Maybe we__e all just afraid of what we__ say.

Maybe it takes tragedy to create paradise.

I realized how hard it that must have been, how much hurt when you know the only way to help someone is to give him distance. So I let him go.

By the way, the other reason I agreed to help you is because I love your eyes. You have the most beautiful eyes. It's my weakness.

Letting go is easy. Anyone can do that. Love is fighting for someone to stay. That's what takes work.

But I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say the know what's best. But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway. Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you need to start believing you know whats best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place.

It's like looking through a microscope your whole life," he (Justin) said. "You miss the whole picture. Sometimes you need to get lost in order to discover anything.

What a forced lifestyle our technology, our inventions imposed on our lives when we tried to live synonymously with computers; when we stepped inside their world, we left the natural one behind.

When you agree to help one person, you ultimately have to disappoint someone else; it's like a karmic law.

Things never happen the way you plan. Take it a second at a time. Stay in the moment. It's the only way to control it. Your thoughts can paralyze you. They make you second-guess and that's when you lose. You mentally beat yourself. Believe you can handle anything. Look at something that's bigger than you and take it all in, the enormousness of it. Drown in it. Then take a step back. Comparmentalize it. Remember, anything's attainable. And take every risk you can, as long as you trust yourself.

The happiest people aren't necessarily the most successful, or the most popular, or the most talented. They're the ones who are interested in the people around them.

Some people say home is where you come from. But I think it__ a place you need to find, like it__ scattered and you pick pieces of it up along the way.

It still hurts, but life is supposed to hurt. Too many people think life is supposed to be easy and perfect all the time. But there is always some hurt. It's part of being alive. You have to accept it's a piece that every single person carries. It's what makes us human.

I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION__ide effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, severe mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to destroy something (preferably something expensive that shatters), uncontrollable tear ducts, stress, a loss of appetite (Cheetos and Dr. Pepper exempt), a bleak and narrow outlook on the future, and an overall hatred of everyone and everything (especially all the happy couples you see strolling hand-in-hand, placed on your path only to exacerbate your isolation and misery). All above reactions will be intensified with the consumption of one or more alcoholic beverages.

You need to be able to fill that space on your own, Maddie. You should never have to rely on another person to make you feel whole. That life is dangerous.

Thoughts are circular, they don't take you anywhere. They don't have feet-they can't gain any ground. They can trap you if you don't eventually stand up and make a move.