That’s the big thing that I learned this year: it’s okay to go slow. That everybody else’s pace and definition of success isn’t mine. What is easy for other people isn’t necessarily do for me. Though some things are easy for me and hard for other people.

You want sins, Aunt? I’ll show you sinning. I’ll make the devil weep, I’ll sin so bad.

This story is about how we undid those complications and got ourselves the rest of our happy ever after anyway.

Then we’ll be lonely hearts together.

Sometimes I liked him for his smile. Sometimes I liked him because he didn’t smile. Sometimes I got an erection because of the way he brushed his hair away from his face. It didn’t matter to my brain that these were odd reasons to care for someone. My brain, my body, my everything wanted to be Jeremey’s boyfriend.

Every book is a revolution. Books are our ticket out of boredom, despair, loneliness – but also ignorance.

There is no normal, not really. Not a right and a wrong way to be. But there is belonging. That day in Bohemia with Jeremey and David and the girls, I belonged. I belonged as much as anybody on the mean. Maybe even a little bit more.

This was something he’d done a great deal of when he was very young, so young the memory was washed to sepia with age.

The chairs and tables, decorated with runners of Italian silk, were Disney-movie themed, because Kelly ate, breathed and farted Disney.

Nothing in the world is the same as anything else, so how can anyone be normal?