I miss him in so many ways, but right now I miss him in the way you always miss someone when you're single among a room full of couples.

...love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together.

I miss us too. I always have and I probably always will. Sometimes there are no happy endings. No matter what, I'll be losing something, someone. But maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice again and again, day in and day out, year after year,says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

I love him wholly and unconditionally and without reservation. I love him enough to sacrifice a friendship. I love him enough to accept my own happiness and use it, in turn, to make him happy back.

But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater.

Love and friendship. They are what make us who we are, and what can change us, if we let them.

Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn't even pay attention to at the time, a place that you didn't even know had a particular smell. I wonder what will someday bring back Dex and our few months together. Maybe the sound of Dido's voice. Maybe the scent of the Aveda shampoo I've been using all summer.

Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

His words are like the sound of a needle dragging across a record. A sinking, sickening feeling washes over me. This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So, when the whole things spills, you aren't as devastated.

We are one of those couples i used to watch, thinking to myself that I'd never be on the inside of something so special. I remember reassuring myself that it probably looked nicer than it actually was, I am happy to be wrong about that.

What every girl dreams of when she's dumped is - that the guy will someday feel regrest and come back and tell her all about it. And the beauty of it is you have no regrets whatsoever.

You see yourself as very average, ordinary. And there is nothing ordinary about you, Rachel." (Something Borrowed)

I think of how life takes unexpected twists and turns, sometimes through sheer happenstance, sometimes through calculated decisions. In the end, it can all be called fate, but to me, it is more a matter of faith.

People generally didn't cheat in good relationships.

I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That this is the only way to grow together, instead of apart.

I still think I love him more. It's one of those things you never know for certain because there's no way to enter all the relationship data in a computer and have it spit out a definitive answer. You can't quantify love, and if you try, you wind up focusing on misleading factors.

I was aware that we were both silently making those inevitable comparisons, putting our relationship in context. She is more this and less that. He is better or worse in these ways. It is human nature to do this--unless its your first relationship, which might be the very reason that your first relationship feels special and remains forever sacred. But the older you get, the more cynical you become, and the more complicated and convoluted the exercise is. You begin to realize that nothing is perfect, that there are trade-offs and sacrifices. The worst is when someone in your past trumps the person in the present, and you think to yourself: if I'd known this, then maybe I wouldn't have let him go.

I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.

Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can't help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary-and why those feelings are all coming back to me now.

I decided that giving a girl a ring when you're not in a serious relationship is sort of like giving a guy a blow job when you have no real feelings for him. It makes everything feel a little cheap.It cheapens the giver and the recipient.

The person who wants out of the relationship always gets her way.

But I have learned that you can't just create your own timetable and will it to come true.

But now we have time. Endless time stretches before us.

And like a favorite old movie, sometimes the sameness in a friend is what you like the most about her.

As everyone applauds and sips champagne, I smile back at Rachel, thinking she got it just right. Love and friendship. They are what makes us who we are and what can change us, if we let them.

It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do.The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?

Why do I need to have reasons? When someone decides to have a baby, people don't go around asking what her reasons are.

I nod, thinking of how difficult marriage can be, how much effort is required to sustain a feeling between two people - a feeling that you can't imagine will ever fade in the beginning when everything comes so easily. I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That is the only real way to grow together, instead of apart.

I had seen the light, come to believe that a wedding should be about a feeling between two people, not a show for the masses...It was a magical, romantic evening, and although I occasionally wish I had worn a slightly fancier dress, and that Nick and I had danced on our wedding night, I have no real regrets about the way we chose to do things.

The mind-blowing, ridiculous sex which was the stuff of both poetry and porn - so unlike anything else I had ever experienced before.

My work has often been described as “chick lit” and for the most part the term doesn’t bother me. I think it simply signals to readers that the book is about women, written for women (although many men enjoy my books), about issues that concern women (relationships, careers, etc.) The only thing that bothers me is when the label is used disparagingly, to imply that all chick lit is, by definition, superficial, beach-read fluff because I believe that this is akin to saying that all women are devoid of substance and the issues that concern us, are fundamentally trivial ones. And I take issue with that.

a bit of a dirty fighter, quick with cutting words that he later regrets and doesn't really mean. Then again, I wonder if there isn't always a grain of truth in them, somewhere

Being married cuts on your freedom. Having a husband or a relationship at all puts constraints on you. by Michael.

Buried beneath disappointment and fear, anger and pride, I just might find it in my heart to forgive.

No second chances. It's not so much about morality, but about my inability to forgive. I am a champion grudge holder, and I don't think I could change this about myself even if I wanted to.

It was about grace, she decides, something that has been missing from her own life. ... She wants to be the kind of person who can bestow unearned kindness on another, replace bitterness with empathy, forgive only for the sake of forgiving.

...recognizing that there is more heartbreak in continuous disappointment than a void...

In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief.

Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. It is where we come from, what makes us who we are.

Although I'm sure there are plenty of tall, gorgeous, life-of-the-party guys who are also true to their wives, I happen to believe that a disproportionate number of them are cheaters.

I know that the problem isn't the dream per se. It was the way I felt afterward, once awake.

his unwavering confidence - but now, it feels like a brand of indifference

So there the two of us were. Frozen in time, living in the moment, focused only on our immediate desires. Which of course included sex. Lots and lots of it.

Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall--the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.But my personal favorite defense has always been anger, with its trusty offshoots of self-righteous indignation, bitterness, and resentment.

Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn't even pay attention to at the time, a place that you didn't even know had a particular smell.

Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room.

But certainly not everyday you can find someone who wants to have a monogamous relationship

Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

True love is supposed to make you into a better person-uplift you.

He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side.

I realize thirty is just a number, that you're only as old as you feel and all that. I also realize that in the grand scheme of things, thirty is still young. But it's not that young.

I'm glad you were both here," I finally manage, thinking how strange it is to be standing with the two people who made you, something most kids take for granted every day of their lives.

I'll remind you of that someday , Maura says. "when you're married to a man who once looked into your eyes and promised to forsake all others. I'll remind of that after you've just had his baby and you have postpartum depression and feel as fat as cow and you are pumping milk into a plastic containers in the middle of the night while he's running around with some twenty-two-years old named Lissette. I'll remind you of that. Maura to Jess.

and more important, did he love me as much as he once loved me?

You can only control your own actions. Not other people’s reactions.

The feeling I have reminds me of New Year’s Eve, when the countdown is coming and I’m not quite sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment. Usually I grab the camera and later regret it when the picture doesn’t turn out. Then I feel enormously let down and think to myself that the night would have been more fun if it didn’t mean quite so much, if I weren’t forced to analyze where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Looking back, I question whether I really loved Nate, or just the security of our relationship. I wonder if my feelings for him didn’t have a lot to do with hating my job. From the bar exam through that first hellish year as an associate, Nate was my escape. And sometimes that can feel an awful lot like love.

I don’t know. She was a sweet girl. As sweet as they come. I don’t know why I didn’t love her. It’s something you can’t really control.

I review my three boyfriends, the three men I slept with in my twenties, searching for a common thread. Nothing. No consistent features, coloring, stature, personality. But one theme does emerge: they all picked me. And then dumped me. I played the passive role. Waiting for Hunter and then settling for Joey. Waiting to feel more for Nate. Then waiting to feel less. Waiting for Alec to go away and leave me in peace. And now Dex. My number four. And I am still waiting. For all of this to blow over. For his September wedding. For someone who gives me that tingly feeling as I watch him sleeping in...

Why is a Christmas tree better than a man? Because it stays up, has cute balls, and looks good with the lights on!

You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that has really has more to do with personality- the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom- almost never -even proposition. Someone always loves more.

Change can be good but its always tough to let go of the past

What if two people want to be your partner, then what?

His loyalty, so fierce and unwavering, makes my eyes water and heart ache.

I looked at my friend, overwhelmed with confusion. Unsure of what April should do. What I should do. What a strong woman would do. In fact, the only thing that I am certain of is that there are no easy answers, and that anyone who says there are has never been in our shoes.

desperately wanting to define what's in the air between us but unwilling to make the first move

Someday being with Dex will be a distant memory. This fact makes me sad too. Its the initial stages of grief that seem to be worst but in some ways, Its sadder as time goes by and you consider how much they're missed in your life.

We both have a lot of growing-up to do... A lot of the world to see & figure out on our own." -- Leo

No, scratch the word "career." Careers are for people who wish to advance. I only want to survive, draw a paycheck.

Would they retreat or move forward? Could they do this thing they were on the verge of doing? Did they have it in them to make a wrong decision just because it felt right?