Casey O'Brien

“Was this the real me? Stripped of the ability to look like a punk- what defined me as one? Not my jacket. Not my clothes. My friends? My enemies? No. What I did determined who I was, not what I looked like or what I liked. My actions and reactions. Did I emerge from the shell? I felt naked and free. Was I now pupa or chrysalis? I felt like myself- and that was what punk was. The freedom to be who I was unapologetically, even if I hadn't chosen it.”
― Phuc Tran, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In

“Joy, it is, which I’ve never known before, only pleasure or excitement. Joy is a different thing, because its focus exists outside the self – delight in something external, not satisfaction of some inner craving.”
― Mary Karr, Lit

“I began to wonder why I felt like I had to choose one thing over another. I was all of these things. I was a plurality. And I was one thing, one word. I was who I said I was. I had said to Professor Slotten: I'm Phuc. I circled back to my name, the only Phuc I had ever met and the only noun I had for who I was.”
― Phuc Tran, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In

“All her excitement had seeped away, leaving behind a terrible sadness, an emptiness that felt violent, as if she’d been gouged.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad