We Were Liars

Be a little kinder than you have to.

Do not accept an evil you can change.

Always do what you're afraid to do.

There is not even a Scrabble word for how bad I feel.

We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.

She is sugar, curiosity, and rain.

What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?

He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever.

The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.

Silence is a protective coating over pain.

If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.

Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

Here I am frozen, when I deserve to burn.

I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.

Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.

Always do what you're afraid to do. ... I will prove myself strong when they think I am sick. I will prove myself brave when they think I am weak.

Be sad, be sorry-but don't shoulder it.

He was a person who couldn't fake a smile but smiled often.

The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.

See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be

Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes, my ears, my mouth. It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.

One day, she ventured to the palace library and was delighted to find what good company books could be.

They know that tragedy is not glamorous. They know it doesn't play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person. Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.

I'll be fine, they tell me. I won't die. It'll just hurt a lot.

She confused being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confused being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts or making them think.

I love him, but I am not sure I like him.

But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I'm not hating myself, I feel righteous and victmized. Like the world is so unfair.

He looked at you like you were the brightest planet in the galaxy.

Never take a seat in the back of the room. Winners sit up front.

ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between. The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows. One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten. Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole. Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out. The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished. No indeed. The dragon simply ate her. The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world. Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls? The dragon? Or their father?