How Hard Can Love Be?

Failure is never getting hurt. Because that means you've not done anything you cared about.

Be you. It's all you can ever be anyway. But own being you. It's a fab thing to own.

Well, look at the other characters in Winnie the Pooh. They all actually demonstrate that Pooh is the most mentally balanced. There’s Tigger, I mean, that tiger just can’t stay in the moment and enjoy it. He’s too much of a hedonist; he always wants the next adventure. That’s not healthy, he’ll burn out.” I started properly laughing. “And what about Eeyore?” “Well he’s a depressive, isn’t he? If Eeyore walked into my doctor’s office he’d be prescribed with a lifetime supply of antidepressants. And not just because US doctors dole them out like candy canes at Christmas.” The music stopped and I found myself clapping without even looking. “But Pooh?” “Pooh lives in the moment. He doesn’t fret about the past, or freak about the future. He’s an expert at mindfulness.” Kyle

Life is so ridiculously clichéd sometimes I wonder why we bother living it when nothing is ever a surprise any more.

Why would anyone get drunk? Why does anyone need anything like that to escape the world, when the world is its own antidote?

and I learned a lesson about not judging people until you’ve found out whether or not they’ve read Harry Potter. Kyle

Maybe there in a set amount of crying your body needs to deal with any trauma. There’s a certain water-level of tears you need to shed until you can find acceptance or move on or whatever. And, if you don’t cry them out, they just catch up with you.

So you gotta fight for your right to be ruddy miserable

I'm not a cynic," I protested. "I'm a terminal pessimist with an edge of angry realism.

Umm, you know Harry Potter isn't real, right?" Kyle said, as I looked disappointedly at the lack of my magical ability. "Mudblood," I muttered, and he laughed again.

Pourquoi les enfants sont si cruels ? On parle toujours de leur "innocence", alors que, d'après mes souvenirs de cours de récré, ils se comportent plutôt comme des petits cons. Il suffit d'être un pu trop gros, un peu trop grand, un peu trop roux, de sentir un peu trop fort... Il n'y a rien d'innocent dans les horreurs qu'on m'a balancées quand j'étais petite.

Yes, well, rein it in, Prom King. British people have been successfully repressing our emotions since before your country was even a thing.” We

Everything is always my fault. I touch things and they crumple into shit, like the opposite of King Midas and his gold finger. If I was in a fairy tale, I would be called “PooFinger”, and everyone would shun me and make me go live in some naff shack under a bridge, telling scary stories to all the children in the kingdom about the wench who turns everything to shit, just by touching it.

Every huge political movement has come from people feeling majorly pissed off. Anger is good sometimes, if you use it the right way.

Life doesn't always have to be about changing the world. Sometimes it's about living your life for you. Trying to find some happiness, completely selfishly, but just for you.

She wasn't blood, she didn't grow up with me, but yet she could see it all...

That's what I wanted. It felt good that it hurt. That there was a simple, physical pain with a simple physical explanation - rather than this twisted unexplainable wrench of an ache in my guts that I knew came from a place that therapists like to find.

Mum!' I screamed into the darkness. The word that causes me the most pain. The word that, to everyone else, brings the opposite. Brings them warmth, and love, and light, and understanding, and stability and security.

There was no way Mum would care for me when I was like this. No way she'd have an epiphany about her behavior and rub my back and say it would all be different now. She'd dodge the blame. She'd bury down the guilt till it was six feet under. She'd yell at me. Tell me I was selfish. Irresponsible. Stupid. All the adjectives you use about teenagers whose parents have let them down and fucked them up and left them screaming inside, trying to get on with the shitty business of growing up when there's a gaping chasm of a hole where your feeling of solid roots was supposed to be.

Whatever happened, it was destined to fail. It was doomed. The only possible outcome would be Amber gets hurt. I didn't do getting hurt very well. Why get myself involved in something that would break me?

When you get your eyes opened up to what's wrong with the world, it does make you angrier. More bitter. More discontent. More, well, sad! Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I wasn't a feminist. I could just concentrate on looking pretty, and turn on the TV and not feel sick with rage that there's hardly any female MPs on the news channel, and all the other women on TV don't have any clothes on. I could pick a boyfriend who's just such a macho douche, and think he's the bee's knees and shower him with blowjobs and bake him cookies and think how lucky I am that he chose me. It could be nice. But it's not the right thing to do! It won't make the world change for the better! I won't grow, if I just accept that's what. The world won't grow. The same unfair shit will just keep happening and yes it's easier to roll over and say, "That's too hard and annoying, I just want to eat some pie", but it's not the right thing.

Anyway, now after this revolution this book argues that things have gone a bit too far. Women, like, HAVE to be sexual now. To the point where our 'sexiness' is making us into, like, a sexiness product. I mean, look at all the gross porn all the guys at college watch, for one. Or any advert where a woman washes her hair and gets an orgasm from her shampoo. Or the way you can't buy a pair of denim shorts now that cover your butt cheeks. Or how in adverts for anything, women's bodies aren't shown as a whole--we're just disjointed legs, or cleavages, or hands -- just our sexual bits cut off and shoved onto a page to sell a watch or something. Women are 'supposed' to be sexy now--otherwise we're prudes, or one of those hairy feminists nobody wants to sleep with. You see how we're judged all the time? How awful it is to be described as no one wanting to shag you? We have to be 'hot' now, otherwise we've failed at life. And if we achieve stuff and we're not hot--it's the first thing people lob at us to undermine everything we've achieved.

L'échec, ce serait de ne pas souffrir. Parce que ça voudrait dire qu'on a rien éprouvé.

Notre corps a peut-être besoin de verser un certain nombre de larmes pour se remettre d'un traumatisme. Pour enfin accepter ce qui s'est passé et avancer. Si on ne le fait pas, ces larmes finissent par nous rattraper.

A quoi ça sert de boire ? A-t-on vraiment besoin d'alcool pour échapper au monde, alors que le monde contient son propre antidote.

Ma mère n'allait pas subitement recommencer à se soucier de moi. Elle n'aurait pas de révélation sur ses erreurs passées, elle ne me prendrait pas dans ses bras en me promettant de se rattraper. Elle refuserait de reconnaître sa part de responsabilité. Elle préfèrerait même l'enfouir six pieds sous terre. Elle me ferait des reproches. M'accuserait d'être égoïste, irresponsable, idiote, tous ces adjectifs dont on accable les adolescents abandonnés par leurs parents alors que, complètement brisés, ils hurlent en silence et se débrouillent tant bien que mal pour grandir malgré le trou béant qu'ont laissé les racines sur lesquelles ils auraient dû pouvoir s'appuyer.