An entire story.

Shreeja wanted to show me some "bloody bloody quotes". I didn't want to, at first. I said something like "I dont like quotes. Actually. I think quotes are narrow-minded statements. I mean, how can I know if their perspective is right for me, if the statement holds for me, unless I know the story behind, you see?"
Then I realised something. No matter what the perspective, the only absolute thing, is universally absolute. She showed me a quote by Neil Gaiman, and I had to put it up here, because I haven't been writing anything, for a long time, anyway. This wasn't just a quote. This was an entire teenage love story told, it seemed.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
Neil Gaiman