I'll Give You the Sun

by Jandy Nelson

“And the sun, Jude.” “Oh, all right,” she says, totally surprising me. “I’ll give you the sun.” “I practically have everything now!” I say. “You’re crazy!” “But I have him.”

‘Beauty is God’s handwriting.

Nothing curdles love in the heart like lemon on the tongue

If bad luck knows who you are, become someone else

“‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,’”

Everything is true at once. Life is contradiction. We take in every lesson. We find what works.

No woman can resist a man who has tidal waves and earthquakes beneath the skin.

Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before – you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers. You could find your way around in the dark if you had to

what is bad for the heart is good for art. The terrible irony of our lives as artists.”

“Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.