Crazyrabbit07

“According to scientists, there are three stages of love: lust, attraction, and attachment. And, it turns out, each of the stages is orchestrated by chemicals—neurotransmitters—in the brain.

As you might expect, lust is ruled by testosterone and estrogen.

The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other’s presence, that’s dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work.

Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference.

The second chemical of the attraction phase is serotonin. When couples confess that they can’t stop thinking about each other, it’s because their serotonin level has dropped. People in love have the same low serotonin levels as people with OCD. The reason they can’t stop thinking about each other is that they are literally obsessed.

Oxytocin and vasopressin control the third stage: attachment or long-term bonding. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and makes you feel closer to the person you’ve had sex with. It’s also released during childbirth and helps bond mother to child. Vasopressin is released postcoitally.

Natasha knows these facts cold. Knowing them helped her get over Rob’s betrayal. So she knows: love is just chemicals and coincidence.

So why does Daniel feel like something more?”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“You can’t just make people fall in love, right? Love is way more complicated than that. It’s not just a matter of choosing a couple of people and making them ask each other some questions, and then love blossoms. The moon and the stars are involved. I’m certain of it.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Fate has always been the realm of the gods, though even the gods are subject to it.
In ancient Greek mythology, the Three Sisters of Fate spin out a person's destiny within three nights of their birth. Imagine your newborn child in his nursery. It's dark and soft and warm, somewhere between two and four a.m., one of those hours that belong exclusively to the newly born or the dying.
The first sister - Clotho - appears next to you. She's a maiden, young and smooth. In her hands she holds a spindle, and on it she spins the thrads of your child's life.
Next to her is Lachesis, older and more matronly than her sister. In her hands, she holds the rod used to mesure the thread of life. The length and destiny of your child's life is in her hands.
Finally we have Atropos - old, haggardly. Inevitable. In her hands she holds the terrible shears she'll use to cut the thread of your child's life. She determines the time and manner of his or her death.
Imagine the awesome and awful sight of these three sisters pressed together, presiding over his crib, dermining his future.
In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consiousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does itmake tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus.
Things happen for a reason, says Natasha's mother. What she means is Fate has a Reason and, though you may not know it, there's a certain comfort in knowing that there's a Plan.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Hearts don't break. They just stop working. An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star