“No matter how smart you might appear to be later with your set of diplomas on their fine white parchment, the mistakes you made before the real lessons sunk in never fade. No matter how high you hang those official documents with their official seals and signatures, how shinning and polished the frame, your reflection in the glass will never let you forget how stupid you felt when you didn't know any better.”
“I may not have been born captain of this boat, but I was born to rock it.”
“Take this one to the bank: birds are hatched from eggs and are always egg-shaped. Maybe there's no escaping the shape that molds you, no getting around how you got started even if you do break out.”
“You've done a thing you can't clean up, found a place you can't reach with mop or apology. The forever you've created branches like the hairline fracture in a pelvic bone, hides like a dirty Polaroid stored under a mattress, rises like hot blood to burn cheeks pretty with shame. Places you didn't even know you were signing your name will always be marked by your hand, but despite every new day's resolution to never do it again, you will. You'll look away from your own face in the mirror, pull the chain twice to hide from yourself in the dark, and when it's all over you won't say anything. You won't fucking say anything to anyone ever.”
“I can hear all I want about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll on the playground, but only the Girl Scouts know the step-by-steps for limbering up a a new book without injuring the binding and the how-tos of packing a suitcase to be a more efficient traveler. The only thing harder to come by around here than a suitcase is a brand-new book, but I keep the Girl Scout motto as close to my heart as the promise anyway: Be Prepared.”
“It's an old copy and it's starting to fall apart, but I hold on to my Handbook because nothing else makes promises like that around here, promises with these words burning inside them: honor, duty, and try.”
“But once in a while one loses his heart and once I think I did too, but never Mama. Her heart stays right in place and it's wham-bam-don't-give-a-damn every single time. Whatever she's got, that thing that can say good-bye like good-byes don't mean anything, I didn't get that. And the glass unicorn with the shiny gold horn and hooves that sits by my bed proves it, proves that I can't let go of things like Mama can.”
“But if you just got your first car and you're feeling around for the seat lever and find "Desolation Angels" instead, the beautiful people on the cover so lazily entwined, well, that's the type of experience that can turn your head around.”
“You'll look away from your own face in the mirror, pull the chain twice to hide from yourself in the dark, and when it's all over you won't fucking say anything. You won't fucking say anything to anyone ever.”
“6. Sleep with a bra on every night in fear of your boobs dropping should you forget. Intermediate: Don't wear a bra in the daytime. Advanced: Forget bras and wear the Hear Comes Trouble T-shirt you got for your eighth birthday. Act offended if anyone stares at the new shape of the word Trouble. Wear the shirt until your mother asks what smells.”
“In the fairy tales there's only one Big Bad Wolf and the little girl takes only one trip through the Dark Forest and fights only one fight for her life before the story ends in happily and ever after. But life on the Calle is real, not make-believe, and every Calle girl knows that once the My-What-Big-Paws-You-Have fall on her skin, Little Red will carry that scent no matter how hard she scrubs. From that point on, every wolf in the every forest of her very real life will recognize her and they'll do their Biggest and Baddest to get into her basket anytime she drops her guard. So be prepared. We're not out of the woods yet.”
“Which statements are true according to the passage?
A) Science, governments, and your doctor should be trusted.
B) 'Comforting her deep into the night' is a euphemism for sneaking candy.
C) The ugliest phrase used in this passage is 'female.'
D) Bad things really do come in threes.”
“Ramona grabbed the book. “It’s mine. I told you it was mine!” Then she turned to Beezus and said triumphantly, “You said people didn’t buy books at the library and now you just bought one!”
“Once, I believed in you like a poem, turned your heart into a metaphor for my heart, turned our mouths into honey and caramel lozenges.
But metaphors come and metaphors go,
and not even seasons have the courtesy to stay till dawn.”
“I think you have a fetish for office sex, sweetie, he whispered. You're my fetish, Blake”
“For immediately in the beginning, after his original life of blessedness, the first man despised the command of God, and fell into this mortal and perishable state, and exchanged his former divinely inspired luxury for this curse-laden earth. His descendants having filled our earth, showed themselves much worse, with the exception of one here and there, and entered upon a certain brutal and insupportable mode of life.”
“It’s hard to explain,” she says. “I would say that I’m more spiritual than religious at this point.” “What does that even mean?” I stare upward at the gleaming stars. “To me, religion is the Walmart of spirituality.”
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