Red

“Some mornings, she’d wake and vow, Today, I will get it right. I won’t be such an awful mess of a girl. I won’t lose my temper or make unkind remarks. I won’t go too far with a joke and feel the room go quiet with disapproval. I’ll be good and kind and sensible and patient. The sort everyone loves. But by evening, her good intentions would have unraveled. She’d say the wrong thing or talk a little too loudly. She’d take a dare she shouldn’t, just to be noticed. Perhaps Mabel was right, and she was selfish. But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all? “Oh, Evie, you’re too much,” people said, and it wasn’t complimentary. Yes, she was too much. She felt like too much inside all the time. So why wasn’t she ever enough?”
― Libba Bray, The Diviners

“People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.”
― Libba Bray, The Diviners

“There will always be a part of me that is dirty and sloppy, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“I opened up to you and you judge me”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook