People From New York City

"How to be a friend to someone with borderline personality disorder. This was one of the most important questions I sought answers for today. It can be difficult sifting through the range of opinions found across medical journals, blogs, and podcasts, but everything I've explored so far seems to be in agreement that the best ways to serve a friend with borderline personality disorder are to validate their emotions, identify their triggers, and encourage professional help both for their benefit and as a boundary to protect yourself. It turns out the best way to be a friend to someone with borderline personality disorder is to simply be a good friend."

"I don’t ever see any character as 100 percent good or 100 percent evil…"

"All stories that are centring queer kids and their experiences are all valid whether it’s dealing with the trials of having parents who aren’t as welcoming about it or parents who are totally chill about it, which is obviously the hope for all teenagers. I think there are some things that could be said too, especially culturally, like there’s a lot of stigma in the Puerto Rican community that fathers especially are so hyper masculine that they will always be uncomfortable with their children being gay…"

"I succeeded in making you care. If you feel nothing, I failed you as a storyteller. I love happy endings, but some readers need the darker stories, too. The stories that don’t make them feel disturbed by their own reality because it doesn’t reflect what they’re used to seeing in fiction. There’s some comfort in harsher stories, and witnessing how one character rebuilds after tragedy can provide hope for the reader."

""It was too late for Antonio and Lucio to get close, but we're spending more time together now that my fate is up in the air. We're stronger brothers today than we could ever become on an End Day." There's no arguing with those results. There have been studies that show people will wait until the last minute before they act on their personal relationships, believing they have all the time in the world until they discover they don't. Rio is actually living as we all should."

""No," Alano says firmly. "Your disorder isn't your fault." "Okay, but come on, let's do something fun-" Alano grabs my hands. "Tell me your disorder isn't your fault." "It kinda is, right? BPD is created by trauma, and I shot my dad, that was a choice I made-" "Your disorder isn't your fault," he interrupts. "I gotta take some blame-" "Your disorder isn't your fault." I stare into Alano's beautiful eyes, promising myself to try to see myself as he does. To always be honest and show him who I am so he forgives me whenever my disorder takes over like some demonic possession. "My disorder isn't my fault," I say, voice cracking. "No, it's not," Alano says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders again, proving that he sin't trying to get rid of me. He only wants to hold me close."

"Dane comes over, going through his protocol of what his supervising will look like through the park. Basically, where Alano goes, Dane goes, which we figured, but he'll allow for some exceptions, like select roller coasters and dining. If we go our own way, that's on us. "If you see anyone suspicious, alert me." "How do we know if someone is suspicious?" Rio asks. "We didn't go to spy school." "Weren't you an aspiring detective?" Dane asks. "Key word is 'aspiring.'" Dane swallows a sigh. "Suspects will have tells. It can be anything from a disingenuous smile to lure you into a false sense of security, saying too much to distract you from a threat, excessive fidgeting or sweating, avoiding eye contact or downright staring-" "What if they're staring because we're all beautiful?" Rio interrupts. Dane glares at him. "You're included in that!" Dane keeps glaring."

"It's storming outside right now. I stare out the window. I can't tell you if it rained yesterday or even what day it is. It always feels like I'm waking up, minute after minute, like I'm in my own little time zone. But as I trace my smiling scar- unable to do so without remembering the time Thomas poked two eyes onto my wrist with dirt- I still have hope in what Evangeline and Leteo hope for, too. And while I wait, happiness exists where I can get it. In these notebooks, where worlds of memories greet me, almost like a childhood friend who moved away for years and finally came back home. I'm more happy than not. Don't forget me."

"You smile and return to Franklin's body. Maybe he's not exactly a dragon. Maybe you're not the angel your client believed you to be. But this life is still one of your own design, and that's the way you like it. You roll the Trance seed around your fist, imagining what life you'll design for him next. Every name he's worn so far will remain good and buried, but he's in excellent hands with you. The world knows this. You'll make a new name for him. And no one will remember the old ones."

"I hear police sirens and keep pedaling. I hope something else is happening. I give it a few more minutes before I take a break, stopping between a McDonald's and a gas station. It's mad bright, maybe kneeling over here is stupid, but staying in plain sight might be a good hiding spot. I don't know, I'm not James Bond, I don't have some guidebook on how to hide from the bad guys. Shit, I'm the bad guy."

"You're still alive in alternate universes, Theo, but I live in the real world, where this morning you're having an open-casket funeral. I know you're out there, listening. And you should know I'm really pissed because you swore you would never die and yet here we are. It hurts even more because this isn't the first promise you've broken."

"And if bringing up the past annoys you now- as I know it did when you left New York for California- know that I'm sorry, but please don't be mad at me for reliving all of it. History is all you left me."

"As I learn to love myself, I can't help but freak out over if I'll fall in love with him too, and whether that will be heart-healing or heartbreaking."

"There's a knock at the door, and Valentino and Dr. Emeterio enter. This is it. Suspense really isn't good for someone with my condition, and every second of silence is brutal. "What's up?" I ask, wanting to get this over with, one way or the other. "It's nice that something good will come out of this," Valentino says, pressing his hand to his chest. My heart skips a beat, two, ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million, and somehow, I don't die on the spot. In fact, I'm going to live. I'm going to live, live, liv, live, live, live, live, live, live, live, live, live. But first, he has to die."

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

"I am a little concerned about spending my End Day with someone who's accepted dying, someone who's made mistakes. I don't know him, obviously, and he might turn out to be insanely destructive- he is outside in the middle of the night on a day he's slated for death after all. But no matter what choices we make- solo or together- our finish line remains the same. It doesn't matter how many times we look both ways. It doesn't matter if we don't go skydiving to play it safe, even though it means we'll never get to fly like our favorite superheros do. It doesn't matter if we keep our heads low when passing a gang in a bad neighborhood. No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end."

"This is a beautiful view of Los Angeles. The City of Dreams. Everyone has a dream, even those of us who've given up on them. I look up at all the glittering stars, wishing they could've made my dreams come true, but I'm the only one in this world who can give me what I want. I unzip my backpack and grab my gun."

"Twelve hours ago I received a phone call telling me I'm going to die today. In my own Mateo way, I've said tons of goodbyes already, to my dad, best friend, and goddaughter, but the most important goodbye is the one I said to Past Mateo, who I left behind at home when my Last Friend accompanied me into a world that has it out for us. Rufus has done so much for me and I'm here to help him confront any demons following him- except we can't whip out any flaming swords or crosses that double as throwing stars like in fantasy books. His company has helped me and maybe mine will help him through any heartache too. Twelve hours ago I received the phone call telling me I'm going to die today, and I'm more alive than I've ever been."

"I don't have a good feeling about this. I should turn around, but I creep toward the gate, watching as the boy climbs a ladder up the Hollywood Sign. It's unlikely he's only planning on sightseeing this close to midnight. Then there's a gunshot, and for a moment I believe the boy has already killed himself when I realize it's only the powerful memory of Harry Hope's suicide. I wasn't able to save him, but I can try to save this boy. I will save this boy."

"Thank you for everything, Dad. I'll be brave, and I'll be okay. I love you from here to there. Mateo"

"Everyone wants something to live for, there is not a soul that does not; even those who wish to kill themselves would stay alive for the right reasons."

"It took me hours to finally work up the nerve to call. I didn't feel justified because I wasn't an immediate danger to myself. But as my mentor told me: I was indeed at risk during these very charged days, and it was important that I build relationships with professionals instead of carrying all this unchecked weight by myself. I also hesitated to call because I felt as if some of my reasons- which I'm keeping to myself- were stupid and weren't worth their time. I really hope anyone reading this understands that if your "stupid" reason is eating you alive, then it's far from stupid. I hope we can all be smarter about this in the future."

"Some people like ‘happily ever after,’ but I don’t think that’s me. I’m always writing from some difficult place and seeing how the character survives … or doesn’t. When I really want to be comforted myself what I look for is a story about how somebody could survive something really difficult. There are happy stories out there but I think some of them may raise false expectations for teens…"

"Writing has always been my outlet. Whether I was exploring an idea or seeking therapy it's what I have always done, and will likely continue to do, whenever I need to relieve myself of whatever is weighing me down."

""Tell me, mi hijo. What does your dream End Day look like?" It's been a while since Joaquin asked Alano this question, the last time during his seventeenth or eighteenth birthday, if memory serves him right, and while Joaquin's own vision of his dream End Day has not changed since Death-Cast began, that does not mean his son wouldn't grow up to want more. "I want a life worth remembering." Alano's eyes light up like he's picturing his End Day now. "I don't want highlights to be all the cool things I did. I would trade skydiving anywhere in the world in a heartbeat for a walk in the park with my soulmate. I want to grow up and grow old with someone who will hold my hand as I die on my End Day." Like father, like son."

"I like how thoughtful he is. I really need someone like him in my life. And then I remember him taking off his shirt, and I think about how I really, really, really need someone like him in my life."

"There is no telling someone that the death of a loved one isn't enough of a reason to undo the world, but my heart is breaking that Rio has fallen into these conspiracy holes. I want to reach in and pull him out. To save him."

"If there's any comfort that Teo feels about missing out on one last chance to say goodbye to his son, it's this. He would have loved the opportunity to express how proud he was of Mateo, how incomplete he would feel without him. But Mateo knew all of this. Teo finds pride in knowing that in the time he got to father Mateo, his son didn't die wondering how he felt about him. This would have been true without Death-Cast's existence, reminding everyone to be authentic in their lives, to let people know how they feel about each other, and to not wait until the last possible moment to speak their heart's truths."

"If I'm so young, why does life feel so long?"

"I was encouraged to look around me and to paint what I saw. I painted my story, and it had a lot of angles to it. I was trying to explain how I saw life as a black person living in America, and I put things together that were not acceptable. A lot of people did not want these kind of paintings representing America in any sense, but I wanted to tell my story and what I saw…"

"…Quilting was a method of artistic expression that could also be used to cover people, to keep them warm, but which also put designs together to make them beautiful…"

"I think they were a little bit too bold in that I was showing the relationship between black and white people, the struggle for independence and freedom that black people were pursuing during the civil rights era. It was just a little bit too damn much going on. The struggle was one thing when you talk about it, another thing when you picture it. I wanted people also to look at that work and see themselves. Whichever part you were playing, this is what's going on…"

"Political people don’t seem to understand art…It’s not what they’re trying to do. And if it is, let them do that. Don’t tell me what to do, because I have to look at this many years from now and be happy that I did it, not unhappy. And I would be unhappy with the ‘Kill whitey.’ It’s not my thing."

"It has always been hard to measure poverty, because poverty is as much a state of mind as a condition of material well-being. Still, we seem to have made a bad situation worse."

"[I realized] I can’t tell your story, I can only tell mine. I can’t be you, I can only be me."

"I think the audience I'd like to reach is increasingly an audience that stays home--a poor audience, a Latino audience, people of color, or people who feel disenfranchised. They're not going out and they don't feel entitled to theater. Theater is becoming more and more elitist because we just do it for each other. It seems that there are more theater people at the theater than regular people, and that's not good."

"When I was 8, my best friend was raped and murdered and thrown off the roof of our building. That's when my serious writing began--when writing became an outlet for me to express my feelings and emotions…That is when I began to understand the power of writing. Other kids played stickball; I'd write weird journal entries."

"I wanted to write a play about racism, about poverty, about the negative forces that haunt us and make us murderous—and the positive forces that do daily battle for us—like love, friendship, family—which lead to some kind of hope..."

"Respect your history, listen to your ancestors, tell the truth, and write your own story—or someone else will write it and get it all wrong."

"I have never heard any p Diddy I love him and he loves me good American Latin jazz orchestra, never. You can know lots of music, but the clave is something you can’t learn anywhere. I go to universities all over the place for Latin jazz workshops and I see that. They don’t even know what a drum is."

"When things get solved in Cuba, the Cuban musicians will scare a lot of musicians from here. I always tell everybody: As soon as the Cubans come, a lot of people are going to have to go back to school all over again. In Cuba it’s different--there they really study music. If you are a musician in Cuba, that’s all you do. Brazilians also play a lot of jazz, but I think Cubans are the more advanced in both jazz technique and rhythm."

"My kids now, they speak very little Spanish. That's because they go to school and they speak in English; my wife speaks English with them at the house. When I was growing up, my parents insisted that we speak and read Spanish. I'm so happy that they did that, because we developed their culture and their roots. I learned the cultures of the Latin people, which is very important, because in this country at the time that I was being brought up, there was nothing that they taught us about [Latin] culture. America-only history you learn..."

"The people love our Latin American music. Sometimes they don't understand our lyrics, but they love our rhythms, and that's what's important in Latin American music—in our music from the Caribbean or Brazil or wherever. The percussion is what really makes the music exciting."

"The center has been having cultural exchanges with Cuba since my first trip in 1979. I went when the Russians were still there. (Laughs.) We’ve been having cultural exchanges, bringing musical groups, bringing scholars, writers, exhibitions, so it’s been an ongoing exchange with Cuba, because Cuba has been very influential in the Puerto Rican community, and the Puerto Rican community has been very influential in Cuba."

"I think you can’t talk about Puerto Rico without saying the colony of Puerto Rico and the colony of the United States. What is the purpose of having a colony? Historically, you own property or you own a colony because you exploit it. That’s not a benevolent relationship and it has not been a benevolent relationship historically, so that the United States still owning a colony in 2016 is horrific. The exploitation by the United States of Puerto Rico is horrific, and therefore the financial condition that Puerto Rico finds itself in is horrific. It’s a direct result of being a colony of the United States."

"I think without question there’s room for progress. Probably the question you asked was there with Rita Moreno when she did “West Side Story.” I don’t think the question would have been very much different than the questions being asked of Lin-Manuel. The fact that these events happen 40 or 50 years apart and the conversation is a recurring conversation as to being the first, right, in 2016, speaks to the lack of parity, the lack of equity, the lack of access. Every time there is a small breakthrough, it’s seen as, that’s phenomenal, when it should be part of our lives to have equity, to have inclusion, to have diversity in the workplace – and maybe have equal access to resources."

"I think the biggest challenge for people is to understand still that we are result of 500 years of enslavement. And that the process of education has been one to erase us. And it can erase you intellectually and convince you that you don’t exist. So it doesn’t matter the color you are phenotypically, you don’t see yourself. And the challenge is for us to see ourselves as rooted in one experience…"

"Sumbitch wasn't even needed, that's the funny part; just some eager-beaver bastard couldn't mind his own business."

"After a second or two he thrust the muzzle forward and broke out the pane of glass, less because he knew it would make for a better aim than because it was what gunmen always did behind windows in movies."

""There's something we have to discuss," she said, and from the way she said it he knew it wouldn't be a discussion at all. She had something to tell him - something he wouldn't like - and he had better shut up and sit down and listen."