P.S. from Paris

by Marc Levy

One day, I’m going to live in theory, because in theory everything goes perfectly . . .

“I’m never going to fall in love with the idea of someone again. Next time, reality is all I’ll settle for. Give me the present and only the present.”

The real question is why you’re in love with him in the first place if he makes you so miserable. Unless you’re in love with him because he makes you so miserable . . .”

If all relationships started badly, Prince Charming would disappear from every fairy tale ever written and romantic comedies would be filed under horror.

A broken heart hurts like hell, I know, but it’s better than being so empty you’ve got nothing to cry about.”

At night, Paul became part of an imaginary world where he felt happy, in the company of characters who had become his friends. When he was writing, anything was possible.

Mia didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew what she didn’t want any more. The waiting, the silence, the suspicion. She wanted to rediscover her appetite for life and to stop waking up with her stomach in knots.

“Alone doesn’t have to mean lonely.

Together, they gazed in silence at the thinly veiled moon that shone in the sky over Paris.

“The important thing is to make a decision,” he said. “Make what decision?” “One that will enable you to live in the present instead of constantly wondering what the future will be like.”

“Are you going to keep running away from him or suffering in silence? For how long?”

“Why do girls always fall madly in love with men who only make them suffer, while they barely bat an eye at the ones who would move mountains for them?”

Is it the freedom of characters in fiction that we find so inspiring, or the way that freedom transforms them?

“Friends don’t judge friends. They just gradually learn to understand them better.”

If only heartache were contagious, you would love me as much as I love you.

When feelings are hard to pin down, we hope that they will take shape as they grow. Mine are now fully grown, but I have been trying hard not to show it.

“There’s nothing ridiculous about expressing your feelings.

And yet you had to meet me, of all people . . . Makes me wonder if two people like us could ever really be compatible . . .

“Trust your instincts. If you really love her, you’ll be able to hear her heart beating . . . somewhere out there.”