8 Quotes by Sarah Nicole Smetana

I had spent so much time floundering beneath the weight of regret, thinking that if I had done something differently, he might still be alive. But I suppose all of us are doomed to think this way. We are, after all, the stars of our own stories.

It struck me then that this was how most things end: seemingly slow and then all at once. As the last trace of him slipped like sand through my fingers, all I could do was smile bleakly, drink my water, and watch him go.

Closing my eyes, I pushed from my head whatever faults I thought I'd heard in myself, because if my father has taught me anything, it was that the whole of a song was always greater than the sum of its parts.

I didn't seem to know anyone as well as I thought I did. But I wonder now if maybe you can't ever truly know another person. Maybe all you can do is hope that one day, you'll know yourself.

And the pain doesn't get easier. It may lose its priority in your life, but it will always be a big fucking crater right in the center of you. The best you can do is try to keep it from swallowing you whole.

Every day, I lost a little bit more of him, and I was afraid that he would slip away until nothing remained but an old photo and a faint longing, a half smile as I struggled to remember some thing he once taught me on a midnight long ago. I had to find a way to hold on to him. I had to find a way to hold on to myself.

Though outsiders always assumed Southern California is perpetually soft and subtropical with the perfect beach breeze, that sweet lick of sunshine, I knew the truth. The real Southern California exists in extremes. It's a place of spontaneous wildfires, and Santa Ana winds, and droughts that turn lakes into craters, splintering the earth like pottery that has crazed. It's a place of storms that transform streets into oceans, and I had no doubts now: the rain was coming.

I didn’t seem to know anyone as well as I thought I did. But I wonder now if maybe you can’t ever truly know another person. Maybe all you can do is hope that one day, you’ll know yourself.