Love Takes Your Choices Away

"Everything that happened to [him] was my fault." . . .

"In all the years I've known him, there's always been exactly one place [he] wanted to be, and he's always fought like hell to make sure he got there and stayed there."

"Where's that?"

"Wherever you were. Remember when you fell out of that tree on the farm when you were ten, and broke your arm? Remember how he made them let him ride with you in the ambulance on the way to the hospital? He kicked and yelled till they gave in."

"You laughed, and my mom hit you in the shoulder."

"It was hard not to laugh. Determination like that in ten-year-old is something to see. He was like a pit bull."

"If pit bulls wore glasses and were allergic to ragweed."

"You can't put a price on that kind of loyalty."

"I know. Don't make me feel worse."

"I'm telling you he made his own decisions. What you're blaming yourself for is being what you are. And that's no one's fault and nothing you can change. You told him the truth and he made up his own mind what he wanted to do about that. Everyone has choices to make; no has the right to take those choices away from us. Not even out of love."

"But that's just it. When you love someone, you don't have a choice. Love takes your choices away."

"It's a lot better than the alternative."

- Dialog about a decision that a teenage boy made that turned his life upside down in "City of Ashes" (2009) by Cassandra Clare, at pages 210-211 (for generality, omissions made where indicated, narrative language omitted, and names omitted; emphasis in the original).

It was striking when I read it and reminds me of similar dialog from the movie Juno.