Taylor Jenkins Reid

“From experience, I can tell you that if you go around trying to figure out what's fair in life or whether you deserve something or not, that's a rabbit hole that is hard to climb out of.”

“You have to know your value, demand to be respected, speak your mind, and dare to ask for what you want. I struggle with every single one of these.”

“I once thought that grief was chronic, that all you could do was appreciate the good days and take them along with the bad. And then I started to think that maybe the good days aren't just days; maybe the good days can be good weeks, good months, good years. Now I wonder if grief isn't something like a shell. You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you've outgrown it. So you put it down.”

“I'd sing all day, every day, all the time if I thought it didn't sound like dying cats.”

“I sense that by writing both books and television, I've become better at each.”

“I liked being needed by him. I liked making his food for him, running his baths for him, massaging his muscles. I liked caring for him, taking care of him. It made me feel like I had a real purpose. It felt so good to make him feel even the littlest bit better.”

“Notice the times in your life when you go above and beyond simply because you care so much.”

“Selling a film option and getting a studio on board can be a slow process, and until things are official, you never want to spill the beans.”

“And here’s why it worked: man or woman, gay, straight, bisexual, you name it, we all just want to be teased.”

“Sometimes you are strong, sometimes you are weak.”

“Sweetheart, I’m telling you, you love someone like that, you love them the right way, and no time would be enough. Doesn’t matter if you had thirty years,” she tells me. “It wouldn’t be enough.”

“I've always thought that a good book should be either the entry point inward, to learn about yourself, or a door outward, to open you up to new worlds.”

“There are, essentially, as many opinions on marriage as there are people in the world.”

“I write a book a year while creating TV and film projects. And being a writer isn't just writing: I have to chase down paychecks and manage foreign tax payments. I maintain a vibrant relationship with readers and bloggers. And when it comes to Hollywood, I typically have to have fifteen business meetings in the hopes that one leads to a project.”

“What's the rush, honey? We have all the time in the world.”

“I am constantly distracted by my own brain when I've completed a paragraph, realized I don't know what comes next, and start opening a browser tab without even realizing it.”

“If you love someone, if you think you could make them happy for the rest of your life together, then nothing should stop you. You should be prepared to take them as they are and deal with the consequences. Relationships aren't neat and clean - they're ugly and messy, and they make almost no sense except to the two people in them. If you truly love someone, you accept the circumstances, you don't hide behind them”

“I think I was just overly excitable about it because I loved him in a way I'd never thought possible. I knew that if I lost him, if I had to live without him, it would crush me. I needed him and I didn't just need him now, I needed him in the future. I needed him always. I wanted him always. I wanted him to be the father of my children. It's such a silly statement now; people say it all the time, they throw it around like it's nothing. And some people treat it like it is nothing, but it wasn't nothing to me. I wanted to have children with him someday. I wanted to be a parent with him. I wanted to have a child that was half him and half me. I wanted to commit to him and sacrifice for him. I wanted to lose part of myself in order to gain some of him. I wanted to marry him. So I wanted him to have meant it. I wanted it to be real.”

“Life is too short to be on a diet.”

“I am endlessly inspired by both the tenderness that can exist between two people and the excitement of falling in love. I'm very fortunate that I've been able to explore that in novels, a television show, some early development film projects, and essays about my own life.”