Gabrielle Zevin: On Elsewhere we fool ourselves into thinking we know...

For the longest time after that, neither of us said anything. I was unaccustomed to his silence, but I didn't mind it. I knew near everything about him, and he knew near everything about me, and all that made our quiet a kind of song. The kind you hum without even knowing what it is or why you're humming it. The kind that you've always known.

Gabrielle Zevin

silence knowing song

I was crying a little for the boy I had wanted him to be and the boy he hadn’t turned out to be.

Gabrielle Zevin

cry littles boys

Our moment had passed somehow. I was different. He was, too. Without our “madness” to unite us, there wasn’t anything much there. Or maybe too much had happened in too short a time. It’s like when you take a trip with someone you don’t know very well. Sometimes you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realise all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travellers, if that makes any sense.

Gabrielle Zevin

too-much different over-you

Why do two people fall in love? It's a mystery.

Gabrielle Zevin

falling-in-love two people

Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down the road and someday, you do not now when, you will make a wrong tun. At the end of the road, when you're least expecting it, he (or indeed she) will be there.

Gabrielle Zevin

driving-down-the-road someday expecting

Hi there," squeaked a precocious little voice, "you are speaking to Chloe Fusakawa, and I have just learned how to answer the phone.

Gabrielle Zevin

phones technology voice

It was funny how dad was more honest in a book that anyone in the world could pick up and read than he could be talking to me. Or maybe it was sad. One or the other. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Gabrielle Zevin

dad talking book

Daddy once said, "If you don't know what you believe, Annie, you'll be a lost soul.

Gabrielle Zevin

daddy soul believe

It wasn't even 8:00 yet. Pretty early for such deep thoughts.

Gabrielle Zevin

deep-thought

My heart was a little bit broken, but I still had to go to school. I buttoned my dress shirt over it and my winter coat, too. I hoped it didn't show too much.

Gabrielle Zevin

heart winter school

As many have discovered, it is entirely possible (although not particularly desirable) to love two people with all your heart. It is entirely possible to long for two lives, to feel that one life can't come close to containing it all.

Gabrielle Zevin

heart two long

Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter, or a sentence in a book whose greater theme had yet to be determined. Maybe this chapter would've had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.

Gabrielle Zevin

toss girl book

A life isn't measured in hours or minutes. Its the quality not the length. All things considered I've been luckier than most. Almost sixteen years on Earth, and I've already had eight good ones here. I expect to have eight more before all's good said and done. Nearly thirty-two years total, and that's not too shabby

Gabrielle Zevin

eight two years

It's a tragic fact to die in an accident

Gabrielle Zevin

tragic accidents facts

It was a nice day, and I don't mean that it was sunny either. It was humid and not too cool, like winter was getting annoyed with itself and wanted it to be spring just as much as everyone else.

Gabrielle Zevin

nice spring mean

It's hard to believe. Where does the times go?' Betty sighs. 'I've always hated that phrase. It makes it would like time went on a holiday, and is expected back any day now. Time flies is another one I hate. Apparently, time does quite a bit of traveling, though.

Gabrielle Zevin

holiday hate believe

There is no difference in quality between a life lived forward and a life lived backwards, she thinks. She had come to love this backward life. It was, after all, the only life she had.

Gabrielle Zevin

quality differences thinking

The scent is sweet and meloncholy. A bit like dying, a bit like falling in love.

Gabrielle Zevin

falling-in-love dying sweet

You forget all of it anyway. . . You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. . . You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They’re the last to go. And then once you’ve forgotten enough, you love someone else.

Gabrielle Zevin

athletic smart lasts

If you are going to forgive a person, Liz decides, it is best to do it sooner rather than later. Later, Liz knows from experience, could be sooner than you thought.

Gabrielle Zevin

liz forgiving persons

On Elsewhere we fool ourselves into thinking we know what will be just because we know the amount of time we have left. We know this, but we never really know what will be. We never know what will happen.