Cackle

What is it about a woman in full control of herself that is so utterly frightening?

They're so excited for one day in a pretty dress... someone should really tell them. They can wear a retty dress whenever they want... Women are out there tethering themselves to mediocre men just so they can wear a ball gown. It's a shame.

I’d forgotten the difference between choosing not to participate and being excluded.

He fears because he is small. I will not meet him there. I will not shrink down to his size, or anyone else's, for their comfort, for their appeasement.

I never realized how much bullshit is bound to the bottom of your hair. How it carries with it the years and experiences, all it has witnessed, has endured. The reason you can’t let go of your past is that it’s still attached. That weight on your shoulders, the strain on your back and neck. It’s your dead ends. Cut your hair! I’m going to scream it from the rooftops and while running down the street, all across America.

I put my books on the shelves, arranging them alphabetically, only to change my mind and rearrange by color and then again by which books I think would be friends.

It’s a nice thing, to cook for yourself. To be good to yourself. To commit to and feed your own happiness.

Fate is just another invention to trick us into complacency. Inaction. If one assumes that they cannot change their circumstances, they won’t try.

I wonder how much of a woman's life is spent this way. Enduring. Waiting for enjoyment or, fuck it, death.

Any step away from the past is a step in the right direction.

But, you'll discover for yourself soon enough the things that devastate us most in the moment are always the things we look back on with such gratitude

I embrace the next morning with all the enthusiasm of a goat entering Jurassic Park.

It’s best not to be specific with wishes. Otherwise, you end up getting what you think you want instead of what

To the years ahead,” I say. “To the future.” And what a thing it is to know. My future is my own.

It’s astonishing what you’ll accept when you want love. When you need it. You’ll welcome it in any form, from anyone, anything, regardless of circumstance, however peculiar. However fantastical.

No. I’ve never had the desire. I suppose it’s made me a pariah, especially in my youth. It was expected, and I shunned the expectation. They say things are better now, that society is more accepting if you don’t want to become a mother. I’m not sure if I find that to be true. Either you want babies or, if you don’t, you must want to eat them.

Memories have their purpose, and nostalgia is not a danger in small doses. It can be good to remember what has made us who we are, to reflect on what has made us stronger.

Is this how it happens? Is this how you make friends as an adult? You stumble upon someone wonderful, and all of a sudden, you’re close?

They’re so excited for one day in a pretty dress,” I say. “Someone really should tell them. They can wear a pretty dress whenever they want.

It must be exhausting to be in your head," Sam told me once. I think what he must have meant was it was exhausting for him to hear about it. I exhausted him.

I wonder how much of a woman’s life is spent this way. Enduring. Waiting for enjoyment or, fuck it, death.

I used to think, ‘Why put in all that effort just for me?’ But I get it now.

I wish it were possible to catch a compliment, to hold it in the cage of your hands like a firefly and never let it go. But . . . it isn’t. The high is transient.

And every time it happens, it’s like a sip of hot tea. It’s macaroni and cheese; it’s cozy slippers; it’s cashmere. It’s comfort.

But why do the things that make us better always have to suck so much? Can’t there be a route to self-improvement with—I don’t know—rainbows and cupcakes and, like, sitting on the couch?

I take it you don’t have children?” She samples a small spoonful of the filling. She considers the taste. “No. I’ve never had the desire. I suppose it’s made me a pariah, especially in my youth. It was expected, and I shunned the expectation. They say things are better now, that society is more accepting if you don’t want to become a mother. I’m not sure if I find that to be true. Either you want babies or, if you don’t, you must want to eat them.

Maybe independence is just the flag we wave to distract from the pain of being alone.

Is it too much to ask never to have to make eye contact with any other living being ever again?

I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of Sophie, this gorgeous, generous wine-store-dwelling goddess.

I think it’s the same as any job,” I say. “Can be hard sometimes. But that’s why there’s wine.