24
" Now, I learned a long time ago how to be quiet on the outside while I'm freaking on the inside. How to turn away like I don't see all the things that need to be seen, just to keep peace. How to lie low and act like I want nothing, expect nothing, and hope for nothing so I don't become more trouble than I'm worth. I'm five months short of eighteen and I know how to be cursed and ignored and left behind, how to swallow a thousand tears and ignore a thousand delibarate cruelties, but it's two in the morning on New Year's Eve and I'm mad and scared and bone tired and really, really sick of acting like I'm grateful to be staying on a hairy, sagging, dog-stained couch in a junky, mildewed trailer with a fat, dangerous, volatile drunk who sweats stale beer and wallows in his own wastewater, and who doesn't think there's one thing wrong with taking his crap life out on his dog, who comes bellying back for forgiveness every single time, no matter how rotten the treatment- "
― Laura Wiess , Ordinary Beauty
40
" That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct. "
― Laura Wiess , Ordinary Beauty