Karen Chan

“I knew that I had reached the end of childhood once I realized that the adults in my life didn't know any more than I did - and then in a flash I knew that everything that had preceded that exact moment was a sort of game played by the so-called adults who winked at each other when you weren't looking...people who pretended to be things they were not, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, athletic coaches, teachers, our heroes, too. But the sad truth was they they were no better than we were, and more often than not, they were much worse because they had been here on this planet longer than we had and therefore were able to collect more vices, worries, and sadness.”
― Matthew Quick, Every Exquisite Thing

“Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they're just as important. Actually, for us, they're way more important.”
― Alice Oseman, Loveless

“I don’t entirely understand how anyone gets a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. It just seems like the most impossible odds. You have to have a crush on the exact right person at the exact right moment. And they have to like you back. A perfect alignment of feelings and circumstances. It’s almost unfathomable that it happens as often as it does.”
― Becky Albertalli, The Upside of Unrequited

“The story of the ugly duckling was never about the cygnet discovering he is lovely. It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful.

It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, Blanca & Roja