You stay safe, You love. You survive. You laugh and cry and struggle and sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed. You Push.

I don't understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it's all I've ever wanted.All I've ever known is about leaving or being left.

I realize that life is risks. It’s acknowledging the past but looking forward. It’s taking a chance that we willmake mistakes but believing that we all deserve to be forgiven.

Life is life. You choose to live it or you do not.

You're stubborn- anyone ever tell you that before?

It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not," he says, his voice like liquid. "I was bitten during the escape from the house." My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in collapsing on itself."I was already dead," he says, opening his eyes.

There is a child - a baby - who long since kicked off her blankets. Her skin is ashen and her mouth open in a perpetual yet silent scream. She isn't old enough to roll over, to sit up, to climb. So she lies there kicking her fat legs against the footboard of the crib, eternally calling for her mother. For food. For flesh.

The living used to wonder what happened after death. She said that whole religions were born and evolved around this one simple uncertainty.

Broken things can be made whole again. Perhaps not as they were before, but maybe stronger this time.

I imagine that's what it must have been like to ride the roller coaster back in the before time. One moment teetering at the top, the world laid out before you and the rush of life filling your lungs. . . and then the plummet. The lack of control. That's what I've started to learn about this world. It might give, but it always takes away.

I sit with my knees pulled in tight and my arms wrapped around my shins. I can no longer feel my feet, as if blood refuses to spread so far from my heart.

It's not about surviving. It should be about love. When you know love...that's what makes this life worth it. When you live with it everyday. Wake up with it, hold on to it during the thunder and after a nightmare. When love is your refuge from the death that surrounds us all and when it fills you so tight that you can't express it.

Darkness grew where it would and took what it wanted. It staked its claim and never let go. And no one else could pry you free of it.

Maybe if she'd invited him into the forest all those years ago, things would have ended differently. But she doubted it. Darkness grew where it would and took what it wanted. It staked its claim and never let go.And no one could pry you free of it.

Not all monsters are filled with darkness.

I know in my life there have been breaches, but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose.

We're both just human. Nothing more. But also nothing less.

Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed? What if we are the only ones left -- who will know our stories then? Who will remember those?

Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest.

Knowing that this is what it means to live. That this love, this need is what drives us to push and fight and build and grow. That as long as there's hope and love in this world, there will always be the living.

If your friend really cared about you he wouldn't let you take such risks.

Do you still believe that if you truly want something enough it can happen?" I ask. I think of all the times I wanted to stop the world from spinning, all the times I wanted to go back and start over again. All the things I've wanted to undo or take back. Did I not want them enough?

It's funny, most people think that revenge is a passionate affair, driven by rage and pain. But it can't be. Feelings such as those make you weak. They overwrite thought and cause reckless impulses that lead to poor decisions.

You think you want love, Mary. You think it is this beautiful gift that does nothing but fill you and make you whole. But you are wrong. Love can be cruel and ugly. It can become dark and cause the deepest pain.

I realize that sometimes death comes before you expect it. That while we are rarely prepared for our friends, family and loved ones to die, we are never prepared for our own deaths. Never prepared to reconcile our own regrets.

It's as if there is infinity between our lips and we will never actually touch. Like math, where dividing by half can last for eternity.

[In my dream] they slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain...I can't struggle, I can't stop laughing, I can't resist these people who once were.

The broken ones need someone to fight for them even harder.

Sometimes it’s the mistakes that turn out to be thebest parts of life,

She must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

I will always need you," I whisper. "All of this time I've waited for you. And you were never coming for me. Why did you let me wait for you?

Not all monsters are filled with darkness.' She wanted him to understand this so badly that her voice trembled.He didn't even hesitate. 'This one is.'She allowed herself a moment to admire Tommy, the way he stood so resolute, like a knight charging after the monster. He just didn't get that this fight wasn't his to wage.'Exactly so,' she finally said.Of course Tommy would think she talking to him. He exhaled as though relieved and the start of a smile eased the tension around his lips. By the time he realized that she'd spoken the words to someone over his shoulder, it was already too late.