Kyrie McCauley > Quotes

“This is what I know of pride. I know that it keeps the secrets of cruel men. I know that it holds us in the shadows, because we are too proud to admit we need help. I know that pride values a man's reputation over a woman's life. It calls her selfish for speaking up, even when she speaks the truth. Especially then.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“If the hero dies, they call
it a Greek tragedy,
but when the heroine dies,
it's a romance.

Now I only want stories
where girls are the heroes,
and our fates are neither written in the stars nor held
in the palm of a man's hand,
but are entirely our own.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“We shouldn't have to do it-
set ourselves on fire
to change the way things are.

But I think maybe
to be a girl in this world
sometimes you have to burn.

Sometimes it's how
we light the way.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“Why kill yourself trying to meet everyone else's expectation of perfect?”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“When the legacy is anger, the inheritance is fear.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“All women have a goth phase, we all need to mourn. Some of us just choose to show it on the outside.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“What happens when you tell little boys every day of their lives that they must be the most? The fastest, the tallest, or the strongest. Maybe you tell them to be bravest, like that's better. Like they won't take their fear and bury it down deep in an effort to please you.
But there isn't so much room at the top, and while it might feel like disappointment when they're seven, it starts to feel like failure when they're seventeen. And then some of them become a different most. They become the meanest. The loudest. The angriest.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“Women who are told their obedience is more important than their voice, not by their husbands, but by their mothers, their friends. Women willing to watch each other get hurt for the sake of image and tradition.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“I imagine this kind of thing happens every single day, but sometimes things are ordinary and incredible all at once.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“Maybe fear is the toll women pay to exist in this world at all.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“I like the crows because they can’t be shut behind a door, or hidden behind blinds. People can’t turn away and shake their heads and say, ‘It isn’t our problem.’
I like the crows because they refuse to be ignored.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“It would have been so easy to stay mad, to dwell on it all night, but I’ve seen how that kind of anger builds on itself. I get to decide for myself what things I’ll carry, and anger isn’t going to be one of them.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“Sometimes anxiety is intuition.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“If you don't know
Beck's humor, or Vivian's grace.
Their riotous, righteous anger.
That's what girls
are made of.

I would know, because I've seen it
and because, for a brief time,
I was made of all those things, too.

And I have also seen
the way they bent time
and space, like their grief
held a gravity
that could not be denied.
And when it gave in,
the strangest thing happened.
It let me come back to them,
for a time, perhaps just
long enough
to remind the world
what we girls are capable of.
Like when Cassandra
saw the future,
when Ariadne
escaped the maze,
when Circe cursed the men,
and Helen started a war,
when Medusa was hunted,
and Andromeda was sacrificed
for her city.

If you already know
the truth about girls
(if you've been lucky enough
to see it)
then you already know
it is possible for three girls
to be at the center of the their own stories-
to be at the center
of everything.

You already know that
we can be heroes.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“SHERIFF THOMAS: You know what I mean, Ms. Logan. It did. What are we going to do, take everyone’s guns away just because one girl died?”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“I'm exhausted and freezing I'm not in the mood for any more of the half-hearted atonements of grown men.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“Maybe memory was a kind of haunting in itself.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“It wasn't fair that Cassie's name would forever be known for how she died. Instead of her laughter, her poetry, her voice.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“I feel responsible too. For my mother. For the girls. For every worried impulse I don't act on. I think that's all anxiety is, really. Responsibility.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“The things that once meant everything to Vivian meant nothing now.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“But some things should fall apart. They should burn themselves out, like a candle that's run its wick to the bottom. It's dangerous to wish for such a thing, though, because some flames are too selfish to extinguish themselves.
There are flames that would set the whole world on fire if it were the only way to kepp burning.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“This is what I know of pride. I know that it keeps the secrets of cruel men. I know that it holds us in the shadows, because we are too proud to admit we need help. I know that pride values a men's reputation over a woman's life. It calls her selfish for speaking up, even when she speaks the truth. then.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“Now everything is one shadow, and this shadow takes the shape of a closet. This closet takes the shape of a sanctuary. This sanctuary takes the shape of three girls who are flapping their wings but going nowhere.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“They told Marin that despite her dark ability, even in the midst of this awful revelation, Evie was just a girl. A tired, lonely girl.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“Bitch is a sliver of word to my side. Sharp. Thick enough to hurt. But I hold my breath and pull it out. Cunt is different. Like a festering disease that settles in my gut. It lives there for months, and I can feel it there always. Heavy enough to remind me of when he said it the first time. Because it wasn't the hatred in his voice, but victory.
I've got it, it said. A tone of near pride. He knew he'd found a word that I couldn't ignore, wouldn't forget. A word cruel enough to affect my sixteen year old self. Who had never been called a name like that before. But had heard it directed at her mother enough times to know how it should hurt. A word that reduces me to an assembly of parts, less than human. A word that makes me nothing but the object of his hatred, which means I'm nothing at all.”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly

“In a world that tells girls we shouldn't be angry, even as our lives are ripped from our grasps. When I throw the brick, I picture myself as a small child throwing pennies in a pond making wishes. So, tonight, I wish too, and the wish begins, "If only. . . If only this world loved living girls as much as it loved dead ones.”
― Kyrie McCauley, We Can Be Heroes

“She also felt that she might not mind being caught if it was Evie Hallowell doing the catching.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“There was only now. There was only Evie.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“Dangerous things can be pretty too.” Thea bared her own teeth at them for emphasis before skipping ahead on the trail.”
― Kyrie McCauley, All the Dead Lie Down

“mothers,”
― Kyrie McCauley, If These Wings Could Fly