The Yearbook

If you’re not scared, then it’s not courage.

People always believe they're nice in their own heads, that's what makes it so scary when you look at the state of the world.

Remind yourself it’s better to be lonely than hurt. It’s better to be alone than in a room full of people who can turn on you.

That the end of childhood is when you realize adults don’t really know what they’re doing.

So many people behave like they think a cinema orchestra is following them around to give them backing music, that they're the superstar of the universe...and the people who believe this way, they're the people who tend to hurt others the most. They think they're the hero of their own story, but, actually, in the pursuit of being so important, they're often the villain of everyone else's.

Sometimes it only takes one person to tell you a different story. A person you love and respect.

Just keep telling the truth, Paige,” he said. “I know it’s hurting, but it’s working.

Well, the weird thing about people,” polly said, “it’s, so very often, they’d rather feel important than feel happy.

I exist dad! I wake up every morning and I exist. Because you made me. I didn’t ask to be here, in this world, in this house, but you guys made me and I’m here and I exist, even though you pretend I don’t. And you know what? It really hurts. It hurts that you treat me like nothing and treat Adam like everything. It hurts how we’re all scared of you. Literally everything about you hurts me, and you don’t even care that it hurts.

I’d been playing a game that was impossible to win. For a prize that didn’t exist.

It hadn’t felt safe. Then I told my story, and now I did.

Your Lexicon is exceedingly impressive." "Listen back to that last sentence, you literary show-off." "I have no idea what you mean.

There was a smell, a musty one that made you feel smarter and the need to talk quietly.

If you don’t say anything bad about other people, it is less likely that they will say bad things about you.

I’m sure, behind closed doors, there was more to them. I’m sure they were complex and 3D and flawed, with their own complicated life stories interwoven with pain like everyone else. But you know what? I couldn’t care less about that. Because I never saw it. Nobody at school ever saw anything by the gloss and the bullying.

I hated them but I was scared of them. In fact, when I watched someone like Chloe suffer, my instant response wasn’t anger, but relief. Relief it wasn’t my turn. Not my day ruined, reputation ruined. Someone else had unwillingly taken the bullet for me.

Nobody tells you that showing disinterest towards someone is one of the most powerful ways to hurt them. It hurts all the more because it’s subconsciously done. If you despise someone, you still care about them. If someone is choosing to hurt you, at the very least you matter enough for them to notice you and torment you. But disinterest…sometimes invisibility hurts most.

We only get only life. One. One opportunity at every moment we are given, and every moment we are given us totally irreplaceable…these precious gifts. And, if you waste them, then…well, regret, what do you do with it? It makes no amends at all. Like you said, if life is just a bunch of decisions that make you who you are, if you don’t take advantage of life because you’re scared, or you upset people by being an arsehole, regret doesn’t make amends. Regret just proves you’re a coward, or a dick.

Your friends become your tormentors. Although, come on, they’re not bullying you, you just can’t take a joke! The psychological warfare puts Putin to shame. One day you come into school and you say hi to your supposed friends, but, overnight they’ve been discussing how terrible you are behind your back and are now freezing you out without admitting that’s what they’re doing. So they’ll go for lunch without you but say they forgot. Or you’ll be walking home and they’ll all just randomly run off and leave you there, laughing, pretending it’s ok. A female friendship group will then hold a little “committee,” telling their chosen victim, in grown-up voices, everything that’s wrong with them as a person and how nobody wants to be their friend anymore, and…why are you crying? We’re just trying to be honest, jeez. Year Nine. We should all get a special medal and six month of counseling on the NHS.

Dad would tell us his story about what happened, and Mum would tell it, and I would tell it, and Adam would tell it. And none of us would tell anyone outside our house anything other than how perfect we all were. Everything would get better until something happened that annoyed Dad again. The pressure in the house would keep building, like filling a balloon with too much air, and I always knew it could pop but I really hoped it wouldn’t.

I believe that if you’re told the same story over and over about who you are, even if it isn’t the truth, it starts to feel true and therefore it starts to become true, and then it becomes your own story.

He is never going to change. The moment’s not going to come. He’s only going to hurt me more the more that I crave his love. And I could choose to keep trying and keep getting hurt. Or I could choose to accept it for what it was, and take back my sad, lonely, and desperate heart and tend to it myself.

No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused.

The end of childhood is when you realise that adults have no idea what the hell they're doing