'This Is How You Lose Her': 21 Junot Diaz Quotes On Heartbreak And Loss

“And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You ask everybody you know: How long does it usually take to get over it? There are many formulas. One year for every year you dated. Two years for every year you dated. It's just a matter of will power: The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“Ana Iris once asked me if I loved him and I told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not. You put down your things and you waited and couldn't do anything really until the lights decided. This, I told her, is how I feel.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You try every trick in the book to keep her. You write her letters. You drive her to work. You quote Neruda. You compose a mass e-mail disowning all your sucias. You block their e-mails. You change your phone number. You stop drinking. You stop smoking. You claim you’re a sex addict and start attend…”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“But back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You keep waiting for the heaviness to leave you. You keep waiting for the moment you never think about the ex again. It doesn't come.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You whispered my full name and we fell asleep in each other's arms and I remember how the next morning you were gone, completely gone, and nothing in my bed or the house could have proven otherwise.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You eventually erase her contact info from your phone but not the pictures you took of her in bed while she was naked and asleep, never those.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, over a gesture.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“Do you remember? When the fights seemed to go on and on, and always ended with us in bed, tearing at each other like maybe that could change everything.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You must learn her. You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there.You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to. You must love her because many have…”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You'd still have me, you tried to reassure her, but Paloma looked at you like the apocalypse would be preferable.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“She just seemed to take it, never gave anything off, not light, not heat.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“That's about it. In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace—and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“Then we fucked so that we could pretend that nothing hurtful had just happened.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“The half-life of love is forever.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com

“We hurt each other too well to let it drop.”

— Junot Dìaz, amazon.com