“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
“The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.”— Randy Pausch, amazon.com
“It's not how hard you hit. It's how hard you get hit...and keep moving forward.”— Randy Pausch, amazon.com
“The reality is: sometimes you lose. And you're never too good to lose. You're never too big to lose. You're never too smart to lose. It happens.”— Beyoncé, marieclaire.co.uk
“My mother always told me, 'hide your face-people are looking at you.' I would reply, 'It does not matter; I am also looking at them.'”— Malala Yousafzai, amazon.com
“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state; I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”— Hillary Clinton, marieclaire.com
“As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.”— Banana Yoshimoto, amazon.com
“This is how you fight back: Take the salt from your tears and amass a raging ocean from it. Spindle your cries into its own axis and unleash a sweeping hurricane. Mourn, and mourn, and mourn, for where we stand, gravity persists. And those with the heaviest hearts plant their feet into the earth the…”— Nikka Ursula, cardiamachina.co.vu