Quotes from E. Lockhart

THIS NEW SWING looks strong. The knots are tied carefully. Inside the tire is an envelope. Gat's handwriting: For Cady. I open the envelope. More than a dozen dried beach roses spill out.

One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person...I am not talking about fate. I don't believe in destiny or soul mates or the supernatural. I just mean we understood each other. All the way.

WELCOME TO THE beautiful Sinclair family. No one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure. The Sinclairs are athletic,

Granddad is more like Mummy than like me. He's erased his old life by spending money on a replacement one.

Don't take no for an answer.

We had been in the attic before. Also, we had never been in the attic before.

Being and Nothingness by Sartre.

when the staff was off duty and we Liars were alone on the island, the four of us did what we were afraid to do. We burned not a home, but a symbol. We burned a symbol to the ground.

I was pure liquid loss, then, for an hour or two.

If I'd ever told my mother about what happened with the boyfriend list (which I never did), she would have said that Kim is a double-crossing backbiter. Then she'd have said I should vent my rage, forget all about Kim, get on with it and go eat some soy-based product.

I understand our story now. We are criminals. A band of four.

Tom Sawyer,

I've been a little sad that so many girls love Tommy so much. Hello!?! Tommy Hazard and Prince Charming - neither one exists!

Invisible Man. A Passage to India. The Magnificent Ambersons.

We should not let the family fall apart. We should not accept an evil we can change. We would stand up against it, would we not? Yes. We should. We would be heroes, even.

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.

Be normal, right now. Because you are, because you can be.

I'm not sorry. For anything. At all.

I'm not saying he wants to be the guy who only likes white people," Gat went on. "He knows he's not supposed to be that guy. He's a Democrat, he voted for Obama-but that doesn't mean he's comfortable having people of color in his beautiful family." Gat shook his head. "He's fake with us. He doesn't like the idea of Carrie with us. He doesn't call Ed Ed. He calls him sir. And he makes sure I know I'm an outsider, every chance he gets.

I whisper how I love them into their soft doggy ears.

Adelaide wasn't depressed. She never felt bleak. She had energy. She was talky. She painted her fingernails green and wore floral-print dresses and enormous cardigan sweaters. But you can be talky and paint your fingernails and still be very sad. In fact, you can be talky and paint your fingernails to protect other people from how sad you are.

T)ragedy is not glamorous...it doesn't play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person. Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.

I like the idea of a motto," she goes on. "I think an inspirational quote can get you through hard times." "Like what?" asks Gat. Mirren pauses. Then she says: "Be a little kinder than you have to." We are all silenced by that. It seems impossible to argue with.

But the sadness was still there, underneath.