Quotes from E. Lockhart

They were paragons of self-sacrificing womanhood. Like, 'I'm starving to death! Here, eat my only bakery bun!' 'I can't walk, I'm paralyzed, but still I see the bright side of life, happy happy!' A Little Princess and Pollyanna, let me tell you, they are selling you a pack of ugly lies.

ME, JOHNNY, MIRREN, and Gat. Gat, Mirren, Johnny, and me. The family calls us four the Liars, and probably we deserve it.

The universe is seeming really huge right now," he told me. "I need something to hold on to.

Yeah." Gat was silent for a moment. "Do you believe in God?" "Halfway." I tried to think about it seriously. I knew Gat wouldn't settle for a flippant answer. "When things are bad, I'll pray or imagine someone watching over me, listening. Like the first few days after my dad left, I thought about God. For protection. But the rest of the time, I'm trudging along in my everyday life. It's not even slightly spiritual.

It really bothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred.

They built three new houses on their craggy private island and gave them each a name: Windemere for Penny, Red Gate for Carrie, and Cuddledown for Bess.

It had been, she felt, a dumb event preceded by excellent invitations.

Every time Gat said these things, so casual and truthful, so oblivious—my veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms. I went light-headed. I'd stagger from the table or collapse in quiet shameful agony, hoping no one in the family would notice. Especially not Mummy.

She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.

I think you're wrong about the American dream -said Jule. -No, I'm not. Why? -The American dream is to be an action hero. -Seriously? -Americans like to fight wars. We want to change laws or break them (...). We're all about heading out west and grabbing land from people who had it before. Slaughtering the so-called bad guys and fighting the system. That's the American dream.

The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch.

I wish I could get a giant injection that would turn off my thoughts. I would let a creepy doctor with a secret basement lab shoot a random glowing substance into my ear if I knew it would stop me from feeling the way I do.

I never got an explanation. I just know he left me.

Isaac liked me because I was ignorant and that meant he could teach me, right? That made him feel like a man.

And in the end, after he broke up with me and I was sad and mental, I came to the Vineyard and one day I thought: Eff you, Mr. Isaac. I'm not so very ignorant. I just know stuff about stuff that you dismiss as unimportant and useless. Does that make sense?

Think of your happy memories. Know they are still in you. They are part of you. And maybe even they ARE you.

The fact that I couldn't understand his life experience very well, combined with how he was a year ahead of me and really into all his academics, the literary magazine, et cetera—that meant that all the time, he got to be the big man and I was looking up at him with wide eyes. And that was what he liked about me. And why he despised me.

She believed that the way you speak is often more important than what you have to say.

Some boyfriends?" "Three boyfriends." "Three boyfriends is a lot." Jule shrugged. "I couldn't decide.

I do not suffer fools

He's the guy who says he'll do a project and doesn't do it," said Stacey S. "And he's the guy who says he'll be somewhere when he can't actually be there, because he doesn't want to disappoint someone. He always says yes, but he doesn't mean it, and people get jerked around.

For a moment, the two of us were alone on the planet, with all the vastness of the sky and the future and the past spreading out around us.

People befriend me because they think I'm happy. I'm not even sure why they think I'm happy, but they do. I get distracted, and I laugh, and I turn something on in myself that makes me, maybe, fun to be with. And I'm just— I want you to know up front that I'm false advertising.

At least for today. Let's pretend I'm not a mess, let's pretend you're not angry. Let's act like we're friends and forget what happened