It’s impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.
A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.
I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.
To spend a life in dreams, that sounded too lovely.
I can’t think of anything more crushing than slowly, over time, realizing exactly how wrong you were about someone.
I feel like I need to give people a note with the book that says, ‘I’m OK, no worries!’
I would have done anything to feel real again.
Ironic people always dissolve when confronted with earnestness, it’s their kryptonite.
Worries find you easily enough without inviting them.
I had no sympathy for drama queens.
Republicans go to Sam’s Club, Democrats go to Costco.
I’ve suffered betrayal with all five senses. For over a year.
She released her grievances like handfuls of birdseed: They are there, and they are gone.
And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls.
Nick is like a good stiff drink: He gives everything the correct perspective.
I don’t understand the point of being together if you’re not the happiest.
Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.
Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it.
There is an unfair responsibility that comes with being an only child – you grow up knowing you aren’t allowed to disappoint, you’re not even allowed to die. There isn’t a replacement toddling around; you’re it. It makes you desperate to be flawless, and it also makes you drunk with the power. In such ways are despots made.
I’m here, I said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words. When I’m panicked, I say them aloud to myself. I’m here. I don’t usually feel that I am. I feel like a warm gust of wind could exhale my way and I’d be disappeared forever, not even a sliver of fingernail left behind. On some days, I find this thought calming; on others it chills me.