Abby Chirpich

“My mind involuntarily keeps repeating the John Updike quote “Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.”
― Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

“I’m not sure happy is a feeling for me anymore,” he says. “Ever since Wendy died, I don’t really think about what will make me happy. It’s like I decided at some point that I can’t ever be happy again, so I should just think about what will make other people happy.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“Phoebe wonders how long Lila could go on without a response. Again, she wonders if this is the difference between growing up with and without a mother. Having a mother helps you believe that everybody wants to hear every little thing you think. Having a mother helps you speak without thinking. It allows you to trust in your most awful self, to yell and scream and cry, knowing that your mother will still love you by the end of it. In her teens, Phoebe was regularly astonished by how awful her friends were to their mothers, and the mothers just took it, because the mothers knew that sometimes they were awful, too. The mothers had made their own mistakes.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“For mind control to work, there has to be heroes and villains. It has to be us versus them. In a cult, it isn’t good enough for you to say, “I love you, but I disagree with you.” You must affirm my choices and beliefs. Only then can you be considered “safe.” In a cult, safety means agreement.”
― Bethany Joy Lenz, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show