For a second, I stared at the map of her veins just under the surface of her thin skin. It was like her body was trying to become diaphanous. Instead of getting harder and stronger and full of life as we age, we disappear slowly. Our skin thins and evaporates. Our nails barely coat our fingertips. Our hair falls out. We are never more see-through.

And since I’m marrying into the Quartet, I have certain privileges and duties. If you’re sleeping with Laurel—”“I’m not sleeping with Laurel. We’re dating.”“Right, and the two of you are just going to hold hands, admire the moon, and sing camp songs.”“For a while. Minus the singing.

Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks. ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence ...

I’m only saying what you won’t. He’s a hunk, admit it. A tall, dark, exotic hunk who wants to bed you, and you must be a fucking nun, because it’s been three weeks since you met him and you’re going to have to remove the cobwebs from your vagina with forceps soon, they’re growing into intelligent life form—

There’s nothing like that feeling of waiting for a guy. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. Holding that cell phone in your hand as you take out the trash, use the bathroom, change the litter box. Fearful that the one second you aren’t looking will be when they call. Pathetic. And something I have done as recently as last week.

And I have to say, books haven’t helped much with all this. Because whenever you read anything about love, whenever anyone tries to define it, there’s always a state or an abstract noun, and I try to think of it like that. But actually, love is… Well, it’s just you. And when you go, it’s gone. Nothing abstract about it.

I’m just not ready to give myself up, Sammy. I mean, there’s something perfect about virginity, and I haven’t found someone who deserves to take that perfection from me…”“You’re loco, Carlos. Insane. Totally crazy… Most guys think they’re imperfect for still being virgins past the age of seventeen.

He'd written me up a proposal of why dating him was a sound decision. It had included things like "I'll give up cigarettes unless I really, really need one" and "I'll unleash romantic surprises every week, such as: an impromptu picnic, roses, or a trip to Paris—but not actually any of those things because now they're not surprises.

When I was a teenager, most fathers tended to go berserk when I asked their daughters on a date.... I discovered that all fathers go berserk when their daughters start dating. I have to assume this was because all fathers were once teenagers at some point in their lives, so they had no illusions about whether or not the boys were “up to something.

I nearly dropped the plate I held. "You've asked me out tons of times.""Not really. I've made inapproprite suggestions and frequently pushed for nudity. But I've never asked you out on a real date. And, if memory serves, you did say you'd give me a fair chance once I let you clean out my trust fund.""I didn't clean it out," I scoffed.

Ordinarily, I am the person who falls in love quickly and somewhat inappropriately and then goes on to destroy what is a good thing. That's always been my style. So, you know: I get it. And I feel right now the way I imagine all those guys felt with me. And I have to say, for the first time in my life, I feel something approaching compassion for them.

Most people couple within their own height range- short couples are 8 percent apart, midsize couples are 8 percent apart. The exception is talls. Tall women, meanwhile, date men who are approximately the same size, 0 to 5 percent taller; extremely tall women go for men 0 to 2 percent taller. Tall men are kids in a candy store, dating whomever they want.

Women have got it all wrong now. They give it up too soon, and the men don't respect them. And before you tell me I don't have a clue, let me tell you something. By the time I let my future husbands climb into my bed, I'd made them work for it. And you know what? By the time they left it the next morning, they were begging for me to marry them.

Life is about having the courage, or finding it along the way, to become a fuller person so that you can enjoy it more and feel more alive by pursuing interests that might be out of the ordinary. It is about finding joy in connecting with others, even when those connections involve the risk of getting hurt.It is about being fueled by curiosity, not by fear.

I've found that when you're wrapped up in the process of dating and want so badly to have something work out with someone -anyone- it's easy to forget that your choices aren't limited to one person or the other. There's also the choice I always forget about: To not choose anyone in order to keep myself open to someone who IS right for me.