Quotes from E. Lockhart

Don't pretend you would never hurt anybody.

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

the best way to avoid having your heart broken was to pretend you don't have one.

Don't call me Alessandro, or this could get ugly. Oh, then may I call you Alice?

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

IN EUROPE, I vomited into small buckets and brushed my teeth repeatedly with chalky British toothpaste. I lay prone on the bathroom floors of several museums, feeling the cold tile underneath my cheek as my brain liquefied and seeped out my ear, bubbling. Migraines left my blood spreading across unfamiliar hotel sheets, dripping on the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies.

It was love, and it hit me so hard I leaned against the screen door that still stood between us, just to stay vertical. I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can't leave it alone. The universe was good because he was in it.

Why did you do all that, Frankie?" asked Porter. "I mean, it was brilliant, what you did, what you made us do - but why would you bother? That's what I can't figure out." Frankie sighed. "Have you ever heard of the panopticon?" she asked him. Porter shook his head. "Have you ever been in love?" He shook his head again. "Then I can't explain it," Frankie said. They went inside and took the geometry test.

I said something about what if what if we could somehow stop being the Beautiful Sinclair Family and just be a family? What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?

One day when no one else was around, I went into the craft room at the back of the ground floor. I touched Gran's collection of fabrics, the shiny bright buttons, the coloured threads. My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. I was pure liquid loss...

Don't worry, said Frankie. I'm indelible.

MY FULL NAME is Cadence Sinclair Eastman. I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools. I like a twist of meaning. I endure.

you must wear clothes, you must honor your teachers, you must not attack fellow students' dorm rooms with chain saws.

I guess that is why they've been here. I needed them.

I like to be direct." "Okay," I said. "But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inserutable and generally send mixed messages." "I doubt it." "Human interaction is not my strong point," I told him.

First grandchild," says Thatcher. "There's never anything to match that feeling.

It was love, and it hit me so hard I leaned against the screen door that still stood between us, just to stay vertical. The universe was good because he was in it. I loved the hole in his jeans and the dirt on his bare feet and the scab on his elbow and the scar that laces through one eyebrow. Gat, my Gat.

That's the thing," said Gat. "Everyone's always asking Harris about everything. Why should a grown woman have to ask her father to approve her wedding?

It was like being able to fight, she realized. And being able to change accents. They were powers that lived in your body. They would never leave you, no matter how you looked, no matter who loved or didn't love you.

Whoever dies with the most stuff wins.

our family is white as far back on the family tree as I've ever looked, and I guess I picture people white white white unless someone tells me otherwise

When we say Shut up, Gat, that isn't what we mean at all.

Telling this story will be painful. In fact, I do not know if I can tell it truthfully, though I'll try. I have been a liar all my life, you see. It's not uncommon in our family.

It tasted like salt and failure.