The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth.

When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy.

But to love someone. To care for them. To throw your lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it’s you and me.

Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad.

That the root of most of my problems is that I need to be secure enough in who I am to tell anyone who doesn’t like it to go fuck themselves? Why have I spent so long settling for less when I know damn well the world expects more?