It's not really romantic until it's doomed.
There's a difference between loving w-o-r-d-s and loving language.
If you're always winking, your eyes aren't really open.
As important as it is not to become a parody of oneself, it is equally as important not to come off as a critique of everyone else.
An ordeal is an invitation from the universe to rise to the occasion.
Something about the way the internet amplifies a signal even as it degrades it has a way of driving people to express even their most casual preferences and interests in the fervent, breathless argot of fetishism.
There's a fine line between celebrating and showing off.
Once you arrive at the truth it can't sneak up on you anymore.
After a while we discover that some of our beliefs are merely opinions—and a little later, that some of our opinions are just feelings.
The most insidious way to be mean to someone is to be extraordinarily kind to everyone else.
Sometimes we're on the same page. Sometimes our pages are just stuck together.
Commiseration isn't empathy in the same way that proximity isn't intimacy.
Sometimes we mistake fear for ambition.
As we get older, and time grows precious, empty gestures become costly.
Loving the same things isn't the same thing as loving each other.
Death may have existed forever but life has been around even longer.
Some people are memorable. Other people remind us of them.
An adult can forgive what a child can't understand.
A small bird alights the tip of a Mediterranean Cypress. The tree's entire column sways. The whole world seems impossible, possible in that idle instant. And then the bird is gone and the tree is still.
There are sunsets; and then there's watching … the sun … set.
If you can't love someone a hundred percent of the way they want, at least love them a hundred percent of the way you can.
Nothing matters as much or as little as this moment.
Drilling too deep into something you like is usually a recipe for making it impossible to enjoy.
There's no one cheaper than a person who's free with his anger.
Once, I carried anxiety in my chest. Today it resides in sidebars, on social networking sites.
Sometimes the only silence is noise.
I think I used to be able to appreciate condensed pockets of time. Now I'm greedy. I want oceans. I want eternity.
There's a difference between being faithful and being reliable.
Critical thinking is important; so is kindness.
People are entitled to their happiness, even when it's on our behalf.
Old sad songs that are new to me have a way of stirring long-dormant hurts.
There is a kind of intelligence that seeks footholds in other people's ignorance, that finds leverage in asymmetry and disequilibrium. The exerciser of such an intelligence often relies on the obliviousness of those closest to him to furnish his schemes, viewing their complacence as a form of acquiescence; but what intelligent, manipulative people seldom realize, for all their sophistication, is that it isn't always the absence of guile or worldliness that affords their movements trespass without notice; in truth, they have been observed and recognized: it is merely that they are also loved—and for all the things that love gets hung up on and obsesses over, there is also so much more that love accommodates and overlooks and even forgives. Sometimes we get away with things because we have willing, adoring accomplices.
You can't choose who you love but you can pick your battles.
One way to avoid forming a meaningful opinion about something is to avoid the thing itself.
There's a difference between trying hard and working hard.
Nostalgia is nostalgia up to a point. After that point it becomes a fetish. (After that point it becomes morbid.)
It's one thing to be a creature of habit. It's another to be a creature of possibility.
You put your heart in. You don't always get your heart out.
Sometimes friends remember us when we don't even remember ourselves.
Trying not to care about something that's bothering you is like trying not to taste what's already in your mouth.
I think a not inconsiderable number of our internal conflicts may be attributed to the fact that what makes us sad doesn't necessarily also make us unhappy.
Closeness is a privilege, not a liberty.
We scale mountains. We plumb oceans. We create scenes.
I don't know about "always keep them guessing." I prefer "always keep them discovering."
The afternoon sun hitting the television so hard that I can barely make out what's onscreen is the world's welcome reminder that I should be outside.
Few things lull me into a trance like air-conditioning in February.
I know when I'm circling a truth because my breathing becomes shallow.
It's not real just because you've given it a name. It's real when it does what its name says.
We are the evidence of what we are.
It's one of those neutrally buoyant Los Angeles afternoons where the air is the temperature of my thoughts and I'm not sure if the world's the dream or I'm the dream.
Everything ends eventually out of necessity. A practical mind is the death of immortality.
I'll remain your mystery if you'll remain mine.
We spend our lives waiting for other shoes to drop. There's no umbrella for that.
It's careless where we leave our hearts. It's also the most caring thing in the world.
The fun thing about trouble is that there are always new kinds to get into.
We celebrate the moment: hold it down, breathe memory into its mouth. We exhale constellations of vapor, watering each other with our words. Sentiment freezes into comets, orbits, stars. Festivity is a holding pattern; the universe is limitless intent.