nicole

“I get the urge to feel it, too, so when she takes her hand away, I turn her toward me and I feel the edges of New Jersey. I kiss Hoboken and Atlantic City. I kiss Newark and Trenton. I kiss Camden, and then I follow the road west, over the Walt Whitman Bridge into Pennsylvania. And I kiss home.”
― A.S. King, Everybody Sees the Ants

“The line between what was real and what was fantasy. That fucking mystery. It made me believe there was something to be solved and I was the only one who could solve it. I let myself think that I was the protagonist in some grand adventure, that I could be in any way special. And for that I forfeited what I did have that was real: I forfeited Veracity.”
― Jane Pek, The Verifiers

“You and I are now the Romeo and Juliet of friendships. Only we’re the Juliet and Juliet.”
― Holly Goldberg Sloan, To Night Owl from Dogfish

“Maybe the trick isn't sticking everything out. The trick is quitting the right thing at the right time. The trick is understanding that saying "No, thank you" to something you're expected to accept isn't failure. It's a whole other level of success.”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays