Sharon Biggs Waller > Quotes

“A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“This is why we all fight so hard. Not just for the vote, but for an equal opportunity in the world. A vote is a voice. I think you underestimate yourself, Queenie. This is your fight, same as it is mine.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“There's no way to win. You're a monster if you get an abortion, a slut if you had sex, a moron if you decide to keep the baby.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“Then I knew: this wasn’t just a passion I felt for my model. My feelings about him had nothing to do with how his looks inspired me; he was far more than a muse. With every stroke of pencil and crayon, I had drawn Will into my heart.

I was in love with him.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“This is why we all fight so hard. Not just for the vote, but for an equal opportunity in the world.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“I've decided that I'm going to collect as many spiders in a jar as I can and then pour them all over you, William Flecter. Seeing as how it's good to face your fears.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“I felt accepted for who I was. I didn't have to sort the words in my head first, making sure they were socially acceptable before I said them. I groped around for a word that fit. Peace. I felt peaceful.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“Not at all. You look as though magic has taken hold of you. It must be magic because I don't know how you can draw like that. I can barely manage a stick figure.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“Without any warning, tears filled my eyes. No one had ever given me such a kind and thoughtful gift before. I pictured Will going into the shop, looking over the books, and then discovering the very one he knew I would love. I even pictured him watching as the clerk wrapped the volume in brown paper. I wondered if the clerk had tied the green bow on it or if Will had gone into a notion shop and chosen it himself. These were all small things, but kindness was built of small things.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“Dudes don’t have any scripts for how to fail. With women, there’s no expectation we’ll succeed so we know how to try again.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“For opportunity is nothing if you don't grab it by both hands.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“I hadn't noticed before how his mouth lifted up at one corner, as if he found life too humorous to stop smiling completely. Such a smile should be preserved forever in a drawing.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“who are unwilling to fight for the vote are unworthy of it’? That applies to life, too,”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“If I’m going to be a student here, treated on equal terms, then I have to be willing to do everything that they do,” I said. “There can’t be two sets of expectations, one for them and one for me, the only girl in the class. How will I earn their esteem if I don’t pose?”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“Thirty minutes feels like forever when you're standing in a hot alley with abortion pills under your tongue.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“I hadn't noticed before how his mouth lifted up at one corner, as if he found life to humorous to stop smiling completely. Such a smile should be preserved forever in a drawing.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller

“Dudes don't have any scripts for how to fail. With women, there's expectation we'll succeed so we know how to try again. Dudes ghost on you or get revenge”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“I look like I've been through a battle and lived to talk about it.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“Your girlfriends are the most important people you'll ever have in your life. You keep hold of them.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“An artist should only worry about his or her own expression. An artist shouldn't let the critic hold the paintbrush.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“I'll tell you about the first dick I ever touched. It belonged to a boy named Hayden. We went out freshman year." Annabelle sits on a pink spring horse, her sneakers flat on the ground.
"Oh my gosh! Freshman year?" Bea can't believe it.
"Hey! No judging. We used to make out in the little woods behind his house. He'd been not-so-subtly directing my hand toward his, you know, stuff, and one day, I was like, fine."
"What did you do?>" Bea asks.
"I didn't know what to do," Annabelle says, "so I put it back where I found it.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge

“You will be a wife and a mother, and that is all.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, A Mad, Wicked Folly

“It's easy to think that people forget about you when they walk away: like you never mattered at all, that you never shared a history. But of course that's not true.”
― Sharon Biggs Waller, Girls on the Verge