“I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls' bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I'd not…”— John Green, Miles 'Pudge' Halter, amazon.com
“There would be no heroics, I understood. Just the dull terror, the physical pain that would have to be suffered through”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“The intensity of his attention seemed exposing, and I laughed a little. I was just starting to learn how to be looked at. I took a deep drink. The glass was full of vodka, cloudy with the barest slip of orange juice.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls. I noticed their hair first, long and uncombed. Then their jewelry catching the sun.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“These long-haired girls seemed to glide above all that was happening around them, tragic and separate. Like royalty in exile.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“These long-haired girls seemed to glide above all that was happening around them, tragic and separate. Like royalty in exile.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“The hatred that vibrated beneath the surface of my girl's face-- I think Suzanne recognized it. Of course my hand would anticipate the weight of a knife. The particular give of a human body. There was so much to destroy.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“I dressed to provoke love, tugging my neckline lower, settling a wistful stare on my face whenever I went out in public that implied many deep and promising thoughts, should anybody happen to glance over.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“We licked batteries to feel a metallic jolt on the tongue, rumored to be one-eighteenth of an orgasm.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“I knew just being a girl in the world handicapped your ability to believe yourself. Feelings seemed completely unreliable, like faulty gibberish scraped from a Ouija board.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“Adults always teased me about having boyfriends, but there was an age where it was no longer a joke, the idea that boys might actually want you.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“That was part of being a girl--you were resigned to whatever feedback you'd get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn't react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they'd backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“That was our mistake, I think. One of many mistakes. To believe that boys were acting with a logic that we could someday understand. To believe that their actions had any meaning beyond thoughtless impulse.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogs with words like 'sunset' and 'Paris.' Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the ha…”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“I waited to be told what was good about me. [...] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you- the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”— Emma Cline, amazon.com
“I too want to be important. By being different. And these girls are all the same.”— Sylvia Plath, pastemagazine.com
“In too many instances, the march to globalization has also meant the marginalization of women and girls. And that must change.”— Hillary Clinton, marieclaire.com
“I don’t even want a boyfriend. I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time, and thinks I’m the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me.”— Lena Dunham as Hannah Horvath, amazon.com