Instructions for Dancing

by Nicola Yoon

It was beautiful. But it was sad too. Both things, and at the same time. I don’t know why so much of life is like that.

“Hearts grow bigger so you can love more.”

Love is too small, too singular a word for the feeling it’s trying to hold. Just one word isn’t enough, so I want to use them all. Sometimes I think love is the reason language was invented.

Maybe the whole point of love is to make more of itself.

If you get very, very lucky in this life, then you get to love another person so hard and so completely that when you lose them, it rips you apart. I think the pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved.”

Love is the question and the answer and the reason to ask in the first place. It’s everything. All of it.”

“I gave you the power to see love. The heartbreak is just one part of it. It’s not the all of it. Why did you only focus on the ending?”