“The truth is, we are never just one thing. We all have many titles and many labels, but far too often, we get trapped inside a single definition. The Teacher's Pet, the Rule Follower, the Cheerleader, the Athlete, the Princess, the Basket Case, the Criminal... the Rock Star's Girlfriend. Whether we wrote that definition or it was given to us, it somehow becomes our only identity. We get so lost in it that we forget about all the other pieces that make up who we are.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d just like to see you live one day for yourself.”
“It’s like I became so obsessed with doing things right, I forgot to enjoy them.”
“When my phone chimes with a text message on Monday morning, I'm still in that dreamy state between sleep and awake where you can pretty much convince yourself of anything. Like that a teen Mick Jagger is waiting in your driveway to take you to school. Or that your favorite book series ended with an actual satisfying conclusion, instead of what the author tried to pass off as a satisfying conclusion.”
“And I hear music. The kind you can dance to. The kind that drowns out the rest of the world. Because when you find what you're looking for - when you finally get it right - everything else is just noise.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? You don’t have to do this. Any of this. You don’t have to be someone else. He should like you for who you already are.”
“I’m so tired of crying.
I’m so tired of losing.
I’m just so tired.”
“The truth is, we are never just one thing. We all have many titles and labels, but far too often, we get trapped inside a single definition. We get so lost in it that we forget about all the other pieces that make up who we are.”
“Tristan was the soundtrack of my summer. The beat I walked to. The melody I breathed in and out. The lyrics I lived by.”
“A small shift in perspective and everything falls into place”
“Telling people what they want to hear is not the same thing as winning”
“He looks at me. I look at him. Neither of us speaks. And yet it's like we're both saying everything.
No. Not saying it.
Screaming it.”
“Hello,’ I say. My voice sounds high and squeaky. I try a lower register. ‘Hello.’
Woah. Too low.
‘Hello.’ Third time’s a charm.
They’re already chuckling. I’ve barely even said anything. High school is the worst.”
“He has an Android operating system and you have Apple. It's a compatibility issue. You'll never get along. You may as well just end it now.”
“I'm sugar and spice and all things nice. And look how well that's turned out for me so far.”
“I was surrounded by silence and Tristan was music.
So much music.
All the time.
Streaming in my eardrums 24-7. Serenading me when I was awake. Lulling me to sleep.
Tristan was the soundtrack of my summer. The beat I walked to. The melody I breathed in and out. The lyrics I lived by.”
“His smile brightened the whole room and I thought, Why do they even need stage lights with a smile like that?”
“I can’t help to feel like they’re staring at me, too. Judging me. Deeming me not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not cool enough.
And to be honest, sometimes I wonder if they’re right.”
“But there’s nothing.
My life is one big meaningless cycle of nothingness.”
“Have you ever noticed how many worlds there are out there? Infinite. An infinite number of worlds. And they all function separately from each other. Like unrelated specks of dirt floating in the air. Sometimes two specks will collide, momentarily affecting each other, but most of the time they just keep on floating, completely unaware that any other specks exist.”
“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
“I do not understand men.” That made him chuckle, deep in his chest. “Yes, ye do, Sassenach. Ye only wish ye didn’t.”
“The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed."
"I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self."
"You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.”
“What more do they want? She asks this seriously, as if there's a real conversion factor between information and lives. Well, strange to say, there is. Written down in the Manual, on file at the War Department. Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as a spectacle, as a diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks, continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hersey bars.”
“There's a conflicted look in Day's eyes, a joy and a grief, that makes him so vulnerable. I realize how little defense he has against my words. He loves so wholly. It is his nature.”
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