Taara

“I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Following the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of middle
school, high school would have been a fresh start. When I got to
Fairfax High I would insist on being called Suzanne. I would
wear my hair feathered or up in a bun. I would have a body that
the boys wanted and the girls envied, but I’d be so nice on top of
it all that they would feel too guilty to do anything but worship
me. I liked to think of myself — having reached a sort of queenly
W
status — as protecting misfit kids in the cafeteria. When someone
taunted Clive Saunders for walking like a girl, I would deliver
swift vengeance with my foot to the taunter’s less-protected parts.
When the boys teased Phoebe Hart for her sizable breasts, I
would give a speech on why boob jokes weren’t funny. I had to
forget that I too had made lists in the margins of my notebook
when Phoebe walked by: Winnebagos, Hoo-has, Johnny Yellows.
At the end of my reveries, I sat in the back of the car as my father
drove. I was beyond reproach. I would overtake high school in a
matter of days, not years, or, inexplicably, earn an Oscar for Best
Actress during my junior year.
These were my dreams on Earth.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“If you can't be of utility to people, the second best thing you can be is cute.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet