Verity

by Colleen Hoover

But here in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck by a vehicle happens so often, it’s not much more than an inconvenience. A delay in traffic for some, a ruined wardrobe for others.

Most people come to New York to be discovered. The rest of us come here to hide.

It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.

A writer should never have the audacity to write about themselves unless they’re willing to separate every layer of protection between the author’s soul and their book. The words should come directly from the center of the gut, tearing through flesh and bone as they break free. Ugly and honest and bloody and a little bit terrifying, but completely exposed.

The mistake women make when they choose their clothes for events like the one I was at, is that they don’t think about them from the man’s perspective.

I was about to make love for the first time. I’d had sex before, but never with more than just my body.

a woman knows if she wants to keep a man forever, she has to act like she could get over him in a day.

And with the imagination of a writer, every noise becomes a threat.

If an attraction is present between two people, those two people can only be one of two things. Involved or not involved. There is no in-between.

I was good at spewing bullshit. It’s why I became a writer.

We’re able to separate our reality from fiction in such a way that it feels as if we live in both worlds, but never both worlds at once.