Before I Fall

“There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things she doesn't know; like how I remember when she first came home from the hospital, a big pink blob with a perma-smile, and she used...”

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I 'wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”

“God bless Dunkin' Donuts.”

“Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let...”

“My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll a...”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“But before you start pointing fingers, let me ask you: is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that? Is what I did really so much worse than what...”

“So many things become beautiful when you really look.”

“In my dream I know I am falling. But there is no up or down, no walls or sides or ceilings, just the sensation of cold and darkness everywhere. I am so scared I could scream. But when I open...”

“Hope keeps you alive.”

“And it's the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I haven't been falling at all. I've been...”

“Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens . Do nothing and everything explodes.”

“Here's one of the things I learned that morning: if you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning. It's like that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, and whether it m...”

“Everyone just wasting time because they have so much of it to waste, minutes slipping by on who's with who and did you hear.”

“Maybe before you die, it's your ghosts you see.”

“Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.”

“I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.”

“Popularity's a weird thing. You can't really define it, and it's not cool to talk about, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn.”

“They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how it happened for me.”

“The details that are life's special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never b...”

“The secret is,” I say, whispering right into his ear, “that yours was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.” “But I’ve never kissed you,” he whispers back. Around us the rain sounds like f...”

“At the same time I know that it’s not really their fault, at least not completely. I did my part too. I did it on a hundred different days and in a thousand different ways, and I know it. Bu...”

“Aquí hay algo más que recordar: la esperanza te mantiene viva. Incluso cuando estás muerta, es lo único que te mantiene viva.”

“If I could make it better I would,” he says. In some ways it’s a stupid, obvious thing to say, but the way he said it, so honest and simple like it’s the truest thing there is, makes the tea...”