#teenagers

"I am charging you with the protection of my mother and friends, not to mention keeping my younger self off the Internet. He is as dangerous as Opal."

"It's easier to fake it. When you fake it for sixteen years, it becomes part of you, something you don't think about."

"I want you to trust yourself, baby. Love is all that matters and you’ve always known that. You’ve known, since you were a very little girl, what your life is meant to be about…"

"If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you up. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it."

"I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason."

"I know that your soul is on life support and that you feel lost and like you’re completely spinning out of control, but you’re finding yourself — here, tonight… even in this darkness."

"... And these childrenthat you spit onas they try to change their worldsare immune to your consultations.They're quite awareof what they're going through..."

"For so many years, I couldn’t understand why every time I thought that someone finally loved me, like… for real, they would eventually turn to vapor. Every person whom I’ve ever loved is trapped inside of my chest. I’ve breathed all of them in so deeply that I’ve nearly choked and died on every soul that I’ve ever given myself to."

"Don’t worry if people think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re destined to be."

"I love him in ways that I can’t explain to other people. They don’t understand… it’s not their fault."

"When relationships fail it is usually because someone chooses not to show up for the battle."

"I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love."

"I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself — my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders."

"I fantasize the night sky to be like a cosmic blue print of my life as I close my eyes and unbutton my heart…. just in case anyone up there is listening."

"I really believe that there is an invisible red thread tied between him and me, and that it has stretched and tangled for years — across oceans and lifetimes. I know that it won’t break because our souls are tied."

"I just want your voice aimed at me again. I want to absorb the direction of your eyes…"

"Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. I’m going to help you forgive the things that you won’t let yourself forget."

"The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature."

"Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back."

"Stop trying to be less of who you are. Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back."