Quotes from Andrea Portes

It's one of those dumb days where nothing's really wrong but nothing's really right either and the sky can't even choose to be white or gray.

Ceaseless. Almost too much for this small frame. You make me part of the sky.

I look like vanilla pudding so nobody knows that on the inside I am spider soup.

I don't know how to act around anybody.

But if I can keep my mind on these pages I don't have to care. I can make this all just go away. Poof. I can stay in this book and then this book gets to be real and everything else gets to be fake and who cares anyway.

I mean if there was any justice in the world you wouldn't even have to go to school during your period. You'd just stay home for five days and eat chocolate and cry.

You could waste your whole life worrying, you know that?

We tried to be all of the things ... we are not.

Okay, listen, I don't know what dumb lines you are used to giving girls so they fall all over you but I just want you to know that I wasn't born yesterday so I am gonna go now and leave you to whatever dumb idiot girl is gonna buy that line.

We're both whisper-screaming at each other. All I can think is this is the worst possible way to break up with somebody.

This moment here. This is all you get. Before you are part of the sky.

But somewhere in America, between the freeways and the Food-4-Less, between the filling stations and the 5-o-'clock news, behind the blue blinking light coming off the TV, there is a space, an empty space, between us, around us, inside us, that inevitable, desperate, begs to be filled up. And nothing, not shame, not God, not a new microwave, not a wide-screen TV or that new diet with grapefruits, can ever, ever fill it. Underneath all that white noise there's a lack.

And when I have that feeling, that feeling like I need a handout, desperate, I want to pull my skin off and turn into dust.I want to throw myself back to the angels and tell them to start over,start over without me cause you put the screws in loose, you put the hinges in wrong.

We tried to be less self-involved. We tried to look up from our dumb obsessions and notice other people. We tried to be open, for once. We tried not to be just another vaguely racist family. We tried to be enlightened. We tried to be good. We tried to be all of the things . . . we are not.

Let's just call it like it is, no need to pretty it up. I care what other people think of me. I'm not Jesus Christ. I'm just a girl in the world.

You know why you keep losing, 'cause, guess what, you're a fucking loser.

Out west everything has its own space. Every little ramshackle cabin, shack, hut sits perched atop its own little piece of destiny with room to breathe, room to live, room to die. You'll see them, the dead ones, sitting by the side of the road like some faded gray and rotting mystery, thinking about the good ol days before trains and cars and wanting more.

Logan is a sideways, brilliant, honest guy who does the coolest stuff ever, and everybody hates, but who I am basically in love with. But Logan is damaged, broken. And, let's not sugarcoat it, that ain't gonna change. Even though it isn't his fault, even though his shitty father caused it, even though it's not fair . . . that kinda thing cuts deep. That kinda thing sticks

I know a lot of people think that whole God thing is a joke but I just get a feeling he's up there somewhere.

I bet she thought she was getting into a fight with a vanilla wafer on roller skates but little did she know she was getting into a fight with a spider sandwich.

Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you're a mile away and you've got his shoes.

My age makes him nervous and shamey, cause his eyes keep heading southwards and then back up, guilty. I can tell I can make his eyes swirl and that's just about all I want to do.

I look out past the corn and the wheat and wonder how many sets of bones are buried, unspoken, keeping their stories to themselves in the dirt. I wonder if they know the sky is bright blue today and the air smells sweet. I wonder if they still listen in.

I mean, if there was any justice in the world you wouldn't even have to go to school during your period.