roots in my dreamland

"The way I see it, if something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening. Truth be told, I always felt it a bit lazy to just think of the world as sad, because so much of it is. Because everything ends. Everything dies. But if you step back, if you step back and look at the whole picture, if you're brave enough to allow yourself the gift of a really wide perspective, if you do that, you'll see that the end is not sad, Rebecca. It's just the start of the next incredibly beautiful thing."

She smiles at him, happy, hopeful, beautiful and says, “Hey.”Adam smiles, too, and thinks, This is it. He thinks, I love you. He thinks, Maybe, one day, you’ll even let me tell you.And he says, “Hey.”

"She doesn’t need to fall for him, because he loves her enough for the both of them."

"Pretty fucking tragic twist of fate, but you don’t seem to remember that we first met years ago. An issue, since I remember a little too well. I like no one, absolutely no one, but I liked you from the start."

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”

"Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet."

“In the future . . . if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again . . . fall in love with me.” He presses his lips against my forehead. “You’re still my favorite person, Lily. Always will be.”

"Maybe love isn’t something that comes full circle. It just ebbs and flows, in and out, just like the people in our lives."

"Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes."

“Lily. Life is a funny thing. We only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn’t waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never.”

"All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses."