Quotes from The Perfectionists

Sara Shepard ·  336 pages

Rating: (7.4K votes)


“With perfection comes pressure. Students here are some of the best in the country, and sometimes, they have to let off a little steam. What five girls don’t know, though, is that steam can scald just as badly as an open flame.”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“This doesn't mean you're damaged. It just means your mind has adapted to feelings of being unsafe. It's a coping mechanism”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“all of us are damaged in our own ways. It's just that most people call it 'experience'. And you've had a lot of experience.”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“The first step of any therapy is a little self-awareness. I want you to think about the ways your habits, your belief systems, your personality quirks have been developed to help you and protect you. Then ask yourself if they are truly working or if they’re hurting you. For instance, when you feel a headache coming on, focus on something in front of you. Something real, like your hand, to keep you in the moment. It sounds small, but it helps, I promise.”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“She wanted more than anything to believe him. To believe that things didn’t always have to be so desperate, so painful. To believe she didn’t always have to be alone. To believe that maybe, just maybe, one day, everything would be okay.”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists



“Don’t you think it’s a good idea to . . . I don’t know. To slow down sometimes? To look around and see what you want out of life?”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“Memory was a tricky thing, but reality was even trickier. Once you made up your mind about something, it was hard to comprehend that the truth could be something else”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“I know what I know,” she said softly. “But I let go of the fury I had for that boy a long time ago. If I didn’t, it would consume me. Like perhaps it’s consuming you”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


“Under the glitzy, glamorous surface of the simplest popcorn flick, there were often hidden depths of meaning.”
― Sara Shepard, quote from The Perfectionists


About the author

Sara Shepard
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