Deb Caletti

I've wished for things and never really had the chance...It's time to stop dreaming and do something about it. You've got to know what you want, then...go.

Maybe a person's world can grow bigger in all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to preserve its depth.

People are secretive when they have secrets.

And pity--people who inspire it in you are actually very powerful people. To get someone else to take care of you, to feel sorry for you--that takes a lot of strength, smarts, manipulation. Very powerful people.

The loneliness you feel with another person, the wrong person, is the loneliest of all.

Sometimes good choices are really bad ones, wrapped up in so much fear you can't even see straight.

Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. It__ the silence, sure, but it__ also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, calm conviction. It__ the reassurance of knowledge in the face of confusion.

We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding.

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.

What is it about hairdressers? You tell them 'not too short' and some part of their hairdresser brain hears this as 'whack the shit out of it.' If you never say, 'not too short,' everything is fine. You say it, & it's a guarantee you'll come out ready for the military>

The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.

A relationship could be a place to hide too.

You can forget that other people carry pieces of your own story around in their heads. I've always thought--put together all those random pieces form everyone who's ever known you from your parents to the guy who once sat next to you on a bus, and you'd probably see a fuller version of your life than you even did while living it.

So I put up with bad behavior in the name of loving the way I thought you were supposed to love.

Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".

People can attach themselves to something--an idea, another person, a desire--with an impossibly strong grip, and in the case of restless ghosts, a grip stronger than death. Will is a powerful thing. Will--it's supposed to be a good treat, a more determined and persistent version of determination and persistence. But will and obsession--they sit right next to each other. They pretend to be strangers and all the while meet secretly at midnight." -

I've heard that people stand in bad situations because a relationship like that gets turned up by degrees. It is said that a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water. Place him in a pot and turn it up a little at a time, and he will stay until he is boiled to death. Us frogs understand this.

A person shows signs of clutching on too fast, of being needy, of not hearing the word "no," of jealousy, of guarding you and your freedom. But the signs can be so small they skitter right past you. Sometimes they dance past, looking satiny, something you should applaud. Someone's jealousy can make you feel good. Special. But it's not even about you. It's about a hand that is already gripping. It's about their need, circling around your throat