“ They have been having sex for eighteen months now (he realizes he has to make himself stop counting, as if his sexual life is a prison term, and he is working toward its completion). Hanya Yanagihara
“ There was something scary and anxiety-inducing about being in a space where nothing seemed to be forbidden to him, where everything was offered to him and nothing was asked in return Hanya Yanagihara
“ . . . breathing slowly and rubbing his palm against his chest as if to soothe his heart. Hanya Yanagihara
“ These galleries are hung, mostly, with images from 'Frog and Toad,' and he moves from each to each, not really seeing them but rather remembering the experience of viewing them for the first time, in… Hanya Yanagihara
“ You boys are really turning into a bunch of Peter Pans," he said. "Willem, what are you? Thirty-six? I'm not sure what's going on with you lot. You’re making money. You've achieved something. Don't yo… Hanya Yanagihara
“ Here, however, you made art because it was the only thing you've ever been good at, the only thing, really, you thought about between shorter bursts of thinking about the things everyone thought about… Hanya Yanagihara
“ Beautiful people make even those of us who proudly consider ourselves unmoved by another's appearance dumb with admiration and fear and delight, and struck by the profound, enervating awareness of how… Hanya Yanagihara
“ For years afterward, I had dreams in which my mother appeared in strange forms, her features sewn onto other beings in combinations that seemed both grotesque and profound: as a slippery white fish at… Hanya Yanagihara
“ I know my life's meaningful because"- and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued- "because I'm a good friend. i love my friends, and I care about them, and I… Hanya Yanagihara
“ Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a fri… Hanya Yanagihara
“ There had been periods in his twenties when he would look at his friends and feel such a pure, deep contentment that he would wish the world around them would simply cease, that none of them would hav… Hanya Yanagihara
“ [Friendship] It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutua… Hanya Yanagihara
“ To no one, he knew, not even to Willem. But he'd had years to learn how to keep his thoughts to himself; unlike his friends, he had learned not to share evidence of his oddities as a way to distinguis… Hanya Yanagihara
“ You understand that proof of your friendship lay in keeping your distance, in accepting what was told you, in turning and walking away when the door was shut in your face instead of trying to force it… Hanya Yanagihara
“ But time, I have come to realize, is not for us to fill in such great, blank slabs. We speak of managing time, but it is the opposite. Our lives are filled with businesses because those thin chinks of… Hanya Yanagihara
“ But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your f… Hanya Yanagihara
“ When he had promised himself that he wouldn't try to repair Jude, he had forgotten that to solve someone is to want to repair them: to diagnose a problem and then not try to fix that problem seemed no… Hanya Yanagihara
“ He doesn't know this now, but in the years to come he will, again and again, test Harold's claims of devotion, will throw himself against his promises to see how steadfast they are. He won't even be c… Hanya Yanagihara
“ Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person -- sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial su… Hanya Yanagihara
