Bryan Tanner

“Love you, Sammy,” Dong Hyun said. “I love you, too, Grandpa.” For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Throughout his life, Sam had hated being told to 'fight,' as if sickness were a character failing. Illness could not be defeated, no matter how hard you fought, and pain, once it had you in its grasp, was transformational.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“To know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“It’s so funny you should say this, because if you were one of my students, you’d be wearing your pain like a badge of honor. This generation doesn’t hide anything from anyone. My class talks a lot about their traumas. And how their traumas inform their games. They, honest to God, think their traumas are the most interesting thing about them. I sound like I’m making fun, and I am a little, but I don’t mean to be. They’re so different from us, really. Their standards are higher; they call bullshit on so much of the sexism and racism that I, at least, just lived with. But that’s also made them kind of, well, humorless. I hate people who talk about generational differences like it’s an actual thing, and here I am, doing it. It doesn’t make sense. How alike were you to anyone we grew up with, you know?” “If their traumas are the most interesting things about them, how do they get over any of it?” Sam asked. “I don’t think they do. Or maybe they don’t have to, I don’t know.” Sadie paused. “Since I’ve been teaching, I keep thinking about how lucky we were,” she said. “We were lucky to be born when we were.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow