She Never Acted As If She Liked

I Realized During My Time As A Chaplain That I Didn't Want To Be A Minister.

I Think When You're 16, If You Have Good Parents, They Generally Just Fade In The Background. I Had Great Parents, And Because They Were Great, I Thought Very Little About Them In High School.

I Like The Strings. I Always Have. Because That's How It Feels. But The Strings Make Pain Seem More Fatal Than It Is, I Think. We're Not As Frail As The Strings Would Make Us Believe. And I Like The Grass, Too. The Grass Got Me To You, Helped Me To Imagine You As An Actual Person. But We're Not Different Sprouts From The Same Plant. I Can't Be You. You Can't Be Me. You Can Imagine Another Well – But Never Quite Perfectly, You Know?

No," I Said. And Maybe It Was Only Because Alaska Couldn't Hit The Brakes And I Couldn't Hit The Accelerator.

Much Of My Life Had Been Devoted To Trying Not To Cry In Front Of People Who Loved Me, So I Knew What Augustus Was Doing. You Clench Your Teeth. You Look Up. You Tell Yourself That If They See You Cry, It Will Hurt Them, And You Will Be Nothing But A Sadness In Their Lives, And You Must Not Become A Mere Sadness, So You Will Not Cry, And You Say All Of This To Yourself While Looking Up At The Ceiling, And Then You Swallow Even Though Your Throat Does Not Want To Close And You Look At The Person Who Loves You And Smile.