Modern Love

I gave her my heart; she thanked me for the $12.99 flowers

What makes movies magical is not that incredible things happen in them. Incredible things happen in real life. No, what makes movies magical is they end right after the incredible thing happens. They stop after the war is over, after the team wins the game, after the boy gets the girl.

Making a fool of yourself for love is ultimately about you, about how much you have to give and the distances you will travel to keep your heart wide open when everything around you makes you feel like slamming it shut and soldering it closed.

vulnerability means exposing ourselves to the possibility of loss, but also—crucially!—to the possibility of connection

When you’ve lived most of your adult life with someone else, you don’t know what you can and can’t do on your own anymore, what you can and can’t live without.

the nourishing aspects of family life and life in general: laughing at silly things, lying spooned on the couch with your beloveds, sharing good food, the tactile delight of giggling children crawling all over you. Without this, family life is an endless series of menial tasks: counters and noses to wipe, dishes and bodies to wash, whites and colors to fold, again and again in soul-sucking succession.

Idleness brought trouble.

the best way to know if you are meant to be with someone is to be with him

Profiling is a surface art; real love isn’t.

But a relationship that doesn’t work out isn’t a waste.