Lalaorange

“So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love. We spoke of our desperate need for them with rote and familiar words, like we were reading lines from a play. Later I would see this: how impersonal and grasping our love was, pinging around the universe, hoping for a host to give form to our wishes.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls

“That was part of being a girl--you were resigned to whatever feedback you'd get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn't react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they'd backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls

“It’s amazing what people create using their pain. Work that is touched by melancholy has its own unique beauty. Even the word ‘melancholy’ is pretty, the way it rolls on your tongue. I think sadness adds something to literature that is unique. It’s an ingredient like . . .” I thought for a moment. “Like salt. Salt has that power to completely transform a dish. I think sadness has that same transformative effect in literature.”
― Lang Leav, Sad Girls

“A man's deepest fear is that he is not good enough or that he is incompetent. He compensates for this fear by focusing on increasing his power and competence. Success, achievement, and efficiency are foremost in his life ... A man appears most uncaring when he is afraid.”
― John Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus