Laura Tims > Quotes

“Sometimes when I’m dealing with too much, I stop dealing with anything.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“The thing about guilt is that it doesn't make you want to fix yourself. It makes you shredded and hopeless and small. It makes you avoid the problem because you hate yourself so much you think you'll make it worse, and then you hate yourself more because you're not doing anything to help the people you hurt.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“The hardest thing is kindness when you know you don't deserve it. I want to deserve it. I want it so bad.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“I’m tired of things I love being gone forever. I didn’t think there was room in me for any more holes, but that’s all I am now, a collection of empty spaces where things were ripped away.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“It’s one thing to say you hate your dad. Everyone’s dad is an asshole sometimes. But it’s different to realize you’re never going to wake up one morning and have a dad who isn’t an asshole...”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“Sometimes you don't understand how broken you are until you put all the pieces together, cutting your fingers on them, realizing that enough shards have disappeared so that you'll never fit together like you used to.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“You don't realize that you haven't been feeling anything until you feel something again.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“It’s burning, but it’s not burning me up. I’m feeling it, but it’s not killing me. I think about how powerful it is, and how strong that must mean that I am.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“It's like people don't only look good when they look like a magazine. People can be aesthetically beautiful in the way sunsets and leaves and things are.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“Silence is the worst thing someone can give you. Your mind fills it with every possible bad thing.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“How do you hurt someone who doesn’t care what you think of him, doesn’t care what you say to him, and doesn’t care if you attack him?”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“It's dangerous, the way he makes me smile when I have nothing to smile about.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“It’s the first time a boy has been in my room, but Eliot probably doesn’t qualify as a boy in the boy sense. I shove aside dirty clothes on my bed to make space. I’ve taken care of enough injured teammates to know what to do. “How’s your head?”
“More functional than most.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“What about you? Are you all right?”
“Answer, don’t ask.”
“Typical ISFJ, playing doctor.”
“Oh, Jesus. Tell me what just happened. Do you remember?”
“You were there.”
“Eliot.”
“I may not have thought it through. But that’s a rarity, I promise.”
“That is so obviously a true thing you just said.” I shine my phone flashlight in Eliot’s face. He squints. Regular dilation. “I don’t think you have a concussion. Does anything feel broken?”
“Just my dignity.”
“It’ll recover.” I dip a clean sock in the glass of water on my bedside table and wipe blood off his jaw.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“The truth is, I'm blank most of the time. Static.
Sometimes I think I've used up all my emotions.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“The problem with screaming everything on your mind is that it feels really good when you're saying it, but it's like being drunk. Afterward you have to deal with the hangover and the people you pissed off.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“She doesn't weigh her words like I weigh mine. But all her words are light, no matter what they are. They soar out of her. Mine are always so heavy.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“You just have to watch people. They don't hide as much as they think. Like your expression.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“I’d order a hundred baskets of flowers and carry the casket and get ordained as the freaking minister if it would convince you not to be so dumb.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“I can be your stand-in friend," I mumble, "Convenience friend. Until you meet someone better."
"I hate that thing you just said," he says softly.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“I will literally scale oak trees to avoid uncomfortable and undesired familial social interaction.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“I like who I am in the context of you.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“People are always turning silence into a knife to stab themselves with.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“Dr. Brown told me that grief is like a dying lightbulb. Sometimes it's dark for an hour, sometimes its sputters for a day, and sometimes it seems fine before giving out when you least expect it.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“I should probably go. I have a thousand years of homework. I’m still failing American History because I hate America and I hate history.” Make another joke, show him I’m fine. “Also tomorrow’s trash pickup day so I gotta go put myself out on the curb.” “Please don’t say things like that.” Wrong joke. “Just kidding.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell: A Novel

“Parents have no idea how little they know about the people they gave life to.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell

“He looks ethereal, like a beautiful creature in a fairy tale that might help you or kill you, you don't know which.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“You need to grow up and deal with the fact that just because I can do some stuff doesn't mean I can do everything we used to, even if it makes you feel bad, because pretending it don't happen doesn't stop it from being a thing. it just is.”
― Laura Tims, The Art of Feeling

“If getting out of bed in the morning is as hard for you as fighting a monster, then you're a monster-fighting badass. If going to school makes you want to cry and you go anyway, you're a hero and your story is worth something.”
― Laura Tims, Please Don't Tell