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21 " Poor people knew that all good times had to be paid for. "
― Heather O'Neill , The Lonely Hearts Hotel
22 " Is there a difference between acting like a really intelligent person and being a really intelligent person? "
23 " If we all knew that we were all perverts, we might be a lot happier. "
24 " Being a woman was a trap. Something would bring you down before you were twenty-three. The only time the world shows you any favor, or cuts you any slack, is during that very brief period of courtship where the world is trying to fuck you for the first time. "
25 " She went around reading men's minds. She went inside them as though they were bureaus and she were opening their drawers. She looked underneath folded articles of clothing. She found their dirty postcards. She pulled them out and had a look at them. And what lovely things she did find there. "
26 " She didn’t know what it meant to always want to be close to someone. She wanted to have the same experiences as him. She wanted to hit him and have a bruise appear on her body. "
27 " Why had this good-looking moll chosen this effeminate buffoon, they all wanted to know. But Jimmy understood why immediately. Because he allowed her to be free. "
28 " A girl's desire is like a pretty butterfly. And a man's desire is like a butterfly net. His desire captures and kills her. He turns her into an object to be pinned on a corkboard. I don't think I'm interested in the tyranny of the couple. I'm more interested in what a person does when they're forced to be by themselves. "
29 " He didn't want to read the newspaper or listen to the radio anymore. He didn't want to be a grown-up. There are some people who are just no good at it. "
30 " Rose had grown up in a room filled with sixty other girls. She was used to the intimacy of other female bodies. When a girl reached out a hand to her, Rose always instinctively grabbed it. Poppy was not used to touching other women. Poppy was that strange thing: an only child. "
31 " You've been a naughty kit-kat. Silly bad thing. Dirty raggedy scamp. You'll go straight to hell,' said Rose.'Yes. You've been bad and whiny. You don't get milk. No milk at all. No milk one bit. No milk for you.,' insisted Pierrot.''If you cry, I'm going to poke you in the nose.''Owww! Owww! Owww! I don't want to hear it.'You smell bad. You have to scrub your paws. Bath time. Stinky creep.''Naughty sinner, naught, naughty, naughty. With mud for paws.''Soooo shameful. Look at me. Mister Shameful.'They had never been taught words of affection. Although the two had only known harsh terms and words of discipline, they had managed to transform them into words of love. "
32 " What happened if an unwanted child gave birth to an unwanted child? It was as though she were in a hall of mirrors, except that instead of getting smaller in each one, she got younger and younger. "
33 " All children are really orphans. At heart, a child has nothing to do with its parents, its background, its last name, its gender, its family trade. It is a brand-new person, and it is born with the only legacy that all individuals inherit when they open their eyes in this world: theinalienable right to be free. "
34 " I'm a terrible person,' Pierrot said to her.'I'm quite wicked too', Rose said, and she smiled at him.Pierrot knew that Rose was punished every time she spoke to him. All her words were contraband, treasured items from the black market. A sentence from her was like a pot of jam during wartime. "
35 " At night the monsters under the beds begged him to come make love to them. "
36 " All life began underneath the ocean. So I'm giving people a taste of what existence might have been like before civilization.''But we were amoebas and tiny shrimplike creatures. We didn't start off in deep-sea-diving outfits.''We all come into this world with an oxygen tube in our belly button.''True.'She put her hands up to her own belly. There had so recently been a sea creature evolving in there, trying its best to get its act together. It had perished under the deep, deep, deep sea. "
37 " What city doesn’t like to brag about itself? The gargoyle fauns leaned off the front of the buildings, whispering about their sex lives. The fat catfish in the greenhouse swore they had stock market tips. The horses on the carousel reared their heads, ready for a battle against the mermaid statues in the pond. An electric train rode around and around a tiny mountain in the toy-shop window, while its Lilliputian passengers dreamed in tiny berths. "
38 " as sad things can also have other sides, miraculous ones. If you don’t feel sadness, there are types of happiness and compassion and torture and insight you will never know. Sadness has all sorts of truths that allow you to experience joy. "
39 " At dusk Pierrot found Rose sitting on a bench, facing the river. She was having morbid thoughts. She was descended from people who had come to this great land, killed off its inhabitants and settled in with their treacherous ways. Did you have a right to expect anything from God if you were white and North American ? "
40 " BUT ALTHOUGH he was paying for her whole life, McMahon still wasn’t sure whether he truly possessed her. To make certain that he did, he tried to make Rose miserable. This was the only real proof that a woman belonged to you. Anybody could make a girl happy. It was only when a girl was in love with a man that he could ruin her self-esteem. He knew he would have to get around to that. He only had her for now. "