Quotes from Lily King

You don't always see how much other people are shaping you.

You are in my stomach' was their most intimate expression of love

it scared me, the idea that this professional might go in and find that other person inside me, the person who was feeling all the things I did not let myself feel.

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. Words aren't always the most reliable thing.

It's strange, to not be the youngest kind of adult anymore. I'm thirty-one now, and my mother is dead. (4)

They do this with women. Their teachers, their friends' mothers. Well, you saw it at the restaurant. They sort of throw themselves at them. It breaks my heart because what is it going to look like in ten years with girls their age? All that neediness.

I love these geese. They make my chest feel tight and full and help me believe that things will be alright again, that I will pass through this time as I have passed through other times, that the vast and threatening blank ahead of me is a mere specter, that life is lighter and more playful than I'm giving it credit for. (5)

talking about characters in books is exciting and soothing to me at the same time.

I couldn't sleep beside him. It was too strong. I wanted him too much. It never went away. (32)

Helen declared Western civilization's lack of understanding of other peoples' customs to be the world's greatest and gravest social problem.

I don't know if she is outside of me or inside of me, but she is here. I feel her love for me. I feel my love reach her.

Personality depends on context, just like culture,' she said. 'Certain people bring out certain traits in each other. Don't you think? If I had a husband, for example, who said, "Your typing makes my brain work better," I would not be so ashamed of my impulse to work. You don't always see how much other people are shaping you. What are you looking at?

I hate old people. I hate anyone older than my mother, who didn't get to become old.

Vailala Madness

It's that moment about two months in, when you think you've finally got a handle on the place. Suddenly it feels within your grasp. It's a delusion—you've only been there eight weeks—and it's followed by the complete despair of ever understanding anything. But at that moment the place feels entirely yours. It's the briefest, purest euphoria.

It all goes back to this idea of ownership again. Once I published that book and my words became a commodity, something broke between us.

He seems smaller, his hug without much muscle.

Fear of exposure, fear of weakness, fear of lack of talent, fear of looking like a fool for trying....Its all fear. ... Fear holds us back every step of the way.

You can't really love from inside a big thick shell.

She seemed amused, entirely uninterested in changing him. He knew it was like that at first with anyone. He also knew it might mean that she didn't care about him at all.

I believe you. I'm just terrified by what overenthusiasm might look like. If what I am seeing now is underenthusiasm.' 'If you're anything like Fen, you won't like it much.' I guessed I wasn't anything like Fen.

Tomorrow after you leave I will stand here at this window and remember that yesterday you were right here with me.

I didn't want to miss the euphoria. I haven't, have I? You said it happened at the second-month mark.

My voice is nothing special, but when your mother tells you something about yourself, even if you've coaxed it out of her, it's hard not to always believe it.