Quotes From "The Sun Is Also A Star" By Nicola Yoon

What are we talking about again?” he asks. I say science at the same time that he says love, and we both laugh.“ What are the ingredients?” he prompts me again.“ Mutual self-interest and socioeconomic compatibility.”“ Do you even have a soul?”“ No such thing as a soul, ” I say. Nicola Yoon

I've never understood the phrase they have chemistry before now. After all, everything is chemistry. Everything is combination and reaction. The atoms in by body align themselves with the atoms in his. Nicola Yoon

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

CARL SAGAN SAID that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. When he says “from scratch, ” he means fromnothing. He means from a time before the world even existed. If you want to make an apple pie from nothing at all, you have to start with the Big Bang and expanding universes, neutrons, ions, atoms, black holes, suns, moons, ocean tides, the Milky Way, Earth, evolution, dinosaurs, extinction- level events, platypuses, Homo erectus, Cro- Magnon man, etc. You have to start at the beginning. You must invent fire. You need water and fertile soil and seeds. You need cows and people to milk them and more people to churn that milk into butter. You need wheat and sugar cane and apple trees. You need chemistry and biology. For a really good apple pie, you need the arts. For an apple pie that can last for generations, you need the printing press and the Industrial Revolution and maybe even a poem. To make a thing as simple as an apple pie, you have to create the whole wide world. . Nicola Yoon

I wonder if she realizes how passionate she is about not being passionate. Nicola Yoon

Did your parents care that he was white?"" They never met him." I couldn't imagine taking him to meet my dad. Watching them talk to each other would've been tortuous. Also, I never wanted him to see how small our apartment was. In the end, I guess I really didn't want him to know me. With Daniel, it's different somehow. I want him to see all of me. Nicola Yoon

However, if the long shot is your only shot, then you have to take it. Nicola Yoon

Words, Natasha thinks, should behave more like units of measure. A meter is a meter is a meter. Words shouldn't be allowed to change meanings. Who decides that the meaning has changed, and when? Is there an in-between time when the word means both things? Or a time when the word doesn't mean anything at all? Nicola Yoon

But can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins? Nicola Yoon

And what about the lovers who spend hours staring into each other's eyes? Is it a display of trust? 'I will let you in close and trust you not to hurt me while I'm in this vulnerable position.' And if trust is one of the foundations of love, perhaps the staring is a way to build or reinforce it. Or maybe it's simpler than that. A simple search for connection To see. To be seen. Nicola Yoon

And what about the lovers who spend hours staring into each other's eyes? Is it a display of trust? I will let you in close and trust you not to hurt me while I'm in this vulnerable position. And if trust is one of the foundations of love, perhaps the staring is a way to build or reinforce it. Or maybe it's simpler than that. A simple search for connection. To see. To be seen. Nicola Yoon

How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins? Nicola Yoon

Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself Nicola Yoon

Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either. Nicola Yoon

I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don't want to love him. I really don't. As strategies go, it's not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words. Nicola Yoon

They don't know what poor is. They don't know that poverty is a sharp knife carving away at you. They don't know what it does to the body. To a mind. Nicola Yoon

Yay, science. Nicola Yoon

Do you think it’s funny that both of our favorite memories are about the people we like the least now?” I ask.“ Maybe that’s why we dislike them, ” she says. “The distance between who they were and who they are is so wide, we have no hope of getting them back. Nicola Yoon

Observable Fact: I don’t believe in magic. Observable Fact: We are magic. Nicola Yoon

Hearts don’t break. It’s just another thing the poets say. Hearts are not made Of glass Or bone Or any material that could Splinter Or FragmentOr Shatter.They don’t Crack Into Pieces.They don’t Fall Apart.Hearts don’t break. They just stop working. An old watch from another time and no parts to fix it. Nicola Yoon

But I like my big Afro. I also liked when my hair was longer and relaxed. I’m happy to have choices. They’re mine to make Nicola Yoon

I’m kind of a contagion cryer. You know how when one person starts yawning, everyone else starts yawning too? Or when someone vomits, the smell makes you want to hurl? I’m like that, except with crying. Nicola Yoon

If people who were actually born had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country. Nicola Yoon

He says they're not his type, but I don't really get the concept of having a type. My type is girls. All of them. Why would I limit my dating pool? Nicola Yoon

The ocean here is weird. It's the wrong kind of blue. Nicola Yoon

He thinks my hair smells like spring rain. I'm really trying to remain stoic and unaffected. I remind myself that I don't like poetic language. I don't like poetry. I don't even like people who like poetry. But I'm not dead inside either. Nicola Yoon

Touching him is order and chaos, like being assembled and disassembled at the same time. Nicola Yoon

Kissing is just another way of talking expect without the words. Nicola Yoon

I want to fall in love, with an emphasis on the falling part. Nicola Yoon