Those are pretty much the only questions people ask Colonials. If they want you to tell them anything else, just make it up. They will believe you, because you are wearing a costume.
This wasn’t how I imagined things going. But imagination is so often no match for the absurdity, the randomness, the tragedy of reality.
Because throughout it all, you are still, always, you; beautiful and bruised, known and unknowable. And isn’t that- just you- enough?
I had this feeling suddenly. I get this feeling a lot, but I don’t know if there’s one word for it. It’s not nervous or sad or even lonely. It’s all of that, and then a bit more. The feeling is I don’t belong here. I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know how long I can stay before everyone else realizes that I am an impostor. I am a fraud. I’ve gotten this feeling nearly everywhere I have ever been in my life. There’s nothing you can do about it except drink some water and hope that it subsides. Or you can leave.
Hurting people, really, deeply hurting them – that isn’t something you do on purpose. It’s just a by-product of living.
Love means sometimes sacrificing the things you want in order to make somebody else happy. It means being there for them, even when maybe you don’t feel like it, because they need you.
Some people were nice to you simply because they liked you.
But that’s the thing: when you swear to take someone’s side no matter what, sometimes you have to go to war for them.
If you’re going to have the tortured soul of an artist, then you might as well create some art while you’re at it.
We all want things that aren’t good for us.
Life is sort of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if you know what I mean. Some days are too big. Some days are much too small. But today was one of those rare days that was just right.
Sacrificing everything that you care about in order to make another person happy is not love. It’s not really that some people are gardeners and some people are flowers, Arden. It’s that we both must be both, each in our own time.
So why are you letting your issues get in the way of your talent?
I wasn’t going anywhere, so how could I be going in the wrong direction?
No one saw me and no one knew, and for this reason, these nighttime walks were the only times that I didn’t feel trapped in my life.
I didn’t need to be the most exciting, beautiful, beloved girl in the world. I just needed not to be me anymore.
I wasn’t mad. I didn’t need to scream and attack a piece of furniture. I just needed someone to like me.
There are so many rules that you don’t know, and no matter how much you study, you can’t learn them all.
Walking at night is like walking in a dream. It’s dark, so I don’t notice much of the scenery. I don’t wear my watch, so time becomes meaningless.
Honestly, Elise, sometimes it’s like you don’t even go to this school.′ ‘Well, that is the goal,’ I said.