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90% of the time I was reading this book I was wondering “what is he talking about?” The other 10% I was thinking: “That’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.”

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I’m taking your hand and walking by your side. I’m acknowledging that this road ahead is one that I have no control over, and I’m accepting that for what it is—an adventure, our adventure.

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The first bear in space was named “Gizmo”.

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How do you know what love is, will be, will become? Or if it will hurt? You don’t. But that’s the beautiful thing.

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Scenes that make you wonder how the hell this book got so popular.

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Please think before you say things like “my work hours are literally torturing me,“ or “tickles are a real torture,” because I know what torture means.

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I try to make things look beautiful rather than authentic and flawed because I don’t yet realize that I’m sitting a little too close. That my nose is pressed against the canvas, searching for imperfections, when really I could take a step back and see that my painting is beautiful. Just the way it is.

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In my head I can hear my parents, my grandparents, and all my aunts and uncles in some heavenly choir, coming at me from all directions. If you can’t say anything nice…

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“A good story is a worm-stick,” my professor says.

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Had I been the year-ago-me, I would’ve faced the mirror and given myself one of those ‘get your shit together’ pep talks, but I have learned to embrace my sensitivity. I have embraced that I do feel like a factory defect of a puzzle piece and it has been eating at me for a while.