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41 " She gazes into her own pupils and sees the void that opened up inside of her, swallowing everything like some black hole of happiness... "
― Matthew Quick , Every Exquisite Thing
42 " Don't you think it's weird that we're told to do something pretty much every second of our teenage lives, and then at the end of it we're just supposed to pick a college and a major and a career without ever really getting a chance to think about it? You're just supposed to go regardless of whether you know why you're going or what you hope to accomplish. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Not to mention all the money our parents are supposed to pay for something we're not entirely sure we even want. "
43 " Is there anyone worth admiring in the world? Or does everyone let you down eventually? "
44 " Sometimes you just have to pick a direction and make mistakes. Then you use what you learn from our failure to pick new, better directions so you can make more mistakes and keep learning. "
45 " You are not doomed to be your parents. You can break the cycle. You can be whoever you want to be. But you will pay a price. Your parents and everyone else will punish you if you choose to be you and not them. That's the price of your freedom. The cage is unlocked, but everyone is too scared to walk out because they whack you when you try, and they whack you hard. They want you to be scared too.They want you to stay in the cage. "
46 " You can be whoever you want to be. But you will pay a price. Your parents and everyone else will punish you if you choose to be you and not them. That’s the price of your freedom. The cage is unlocked, but everyone is too scared to walk out because they whack you when you try, and they whack you hard. They want you to be scared, too. They want you to stay in the cage. But once you are a few steps beyond the trapdoor, they can’t reach you anymore, so the whacking stops. That’s another secret: They’re too afraid to follow. They adore their own cages. "
47 " I decided to turn the negatives into positives. As many as I could, anyway. Negatives produce more negatives, and I'd had enough of negative. I was drowning in negativity. "
48 " Mr. Graves was always using the word weirdo to describe himself and people he liked. He said that all the great writers were “weirdos,” too—that our best artists, musicians, and thinkers were first labeled weird in high school or “when they were young.” That was “the price of admission. "
49 " Weird, lonely people need each other. So "
50 " The world doesn't really care too much about what you do sometimes - as long as you let certain types carry on en masse without you. "
51 " He [Alex] was more of an idea than a true friend or a lover. We never got the chance to really know each other or test our compatibility over a significant period of time. I see now that he was sick - that maybe he pushed his needle too far away from the middle of the herd. But being with him for a short time helped push my needle just enough to free me from the life I hated, what everyone expected of me. And even though I have no idea what comes next, I'm grateful that I'm not signed up for a life that would make me miserable. "
52 " You are you [Nanette O'Hare] - and that's okay, because this existence you're making your way through is your story and no one else's. "
53 " There are a lot of lonely kids in this world, but the problem is that they don't know about each other. If the lonely kids could team up, a lot of good things would happen, but the world is incredibly afraid of lonely people teaming up, and so it does its best to keep them apart. "
54 " ...Lonely people often have great ideas but no support. People with support too often have bad ideas but power. And you don't give up power. No one does, regardless of whether they have good ideas or not. No one gives up power without a long, bloody fight - one that usually involves foul play. Lonely people typically can't stomach treachery, and that's another problem. They tend to tell the truth and fight fair. So we need art and music and poetry for the lonely people to rally around. "
55 " No one can tell you what to do with your own art unless you let them. "
56 " Then we talked a lot about our parents and how we didn't want to become them, but we had no other role models--or "maps," Alex kept saying. "My father is a terrible map, mostly because he doesn't ever lead me anywhere." And I thought about my parents being maps that led to places I didn't want to go--and it made a shocking amount of sense, using the word maps to describe parents. It almost made you feel like you could fold Mom and Dad up and lock them away in the glove compartment of your car and just joyride for the rest of your life maybe. "
57 " You can't live for someone else. At some point you just explode... "
58 " How was I to know that being honest would make our relationship so much better? Honesty doesn't always produce such good results. And then I think about how I've never really been honest with my peers, either. I never really let them see the true, authentic Nanette O'Hare. Few people besides Alex and Oliver got to hang out with her. And maybe that was my big mistake. "
59 " Not good, but sometimes necessary when people try to make you believe you are secondary or that you shouldn't even exist. Why do you think we study wars in history class? How many months do we spend on World War II alone? When someone evil crosses that line - like Hitler or Mussolini or Tojo or more they teach us. So why is it okay for our government to drop bombs on people and kill with guns, but we aren't supposed to use our fists to protect ourselves? This country was founded on and by violence. "
60 " Maybe you held back for too long and then you had to explode. Maybe there was no middle ground let. Sometimes we need to get violent with out words because no one is listening otherwise. "