Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You

"There’s still this thing that happens after you break up withsomeone. It barely takes any time to work. All you have to dois continue with your life, and then when you find yourself in aroom with her again it’s as if you’re a different person. Maybeyour posture is a little more confident. Maybe your laughter islouder. You’re wearing perfume she’s never smelled before andyou have a new way of pinning back your hair. You don’t evenhave to say anything because your presence alone is enough tosay Look at who I am without you."

"We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Remember about death and suffering and the complexities of living. Remember what it is like to love someone. Remember how it is to be loved. Remember what you feel in this moment. Remember this. Remember this."

"We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. they tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken."

"Don't you want to kiss me' she asks. She smiles just a little, a hopeful, sweet smile, but buried in it is that confidence that slays me."

"It's the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy. It's what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. I'm seeing her for the first time. Not Ava Garden Wilder, the rags-to-riches granddaughter of Clyde Jones. Not a tragic, romantic heroine. Just Ava. And I am utterly in love."

"Dignity is overrated. You know what trumps dignity? Kissing."

"When you live in LA and work in the movies, you experience the collapse of some of that fantasy. You know that the eyes glow like that because of lights placed at a specific angle, and you see the actresses up close and, yes, they are beautiful, but they are human size and imperfect like the rest of us."

"I want to confess. I thought that her story was comprised of scenes. I thought the tragedy could be glamorous and her grief could be undone by a sunnier future. I thought we could pinpoint dramatic events on a time line and call it a life. But I was wrong."

"There are still Ava Maddoxes to find and sets to create and girls to kiss and colleges to attend. It's possible that someday I will hear a patsy Cline song and the heartbreak will barely register. It will be some distant, buried feeling. I won't remember how much it once hurt."

"The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they aren't larger than life. They are life."