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41 " blousy white top with dolman sleeves "
― Jennifer Weiner , Big Summer
42 " It’s just—in my opinion—the Internet is a place where people end up making themselves feel awful, or hurting other people. And everyone pretends.” His throat jerked as he swallowed. “Everyone tries to put the best versions of themselves across. To fake it. And when they’re not doing that, they’re sitting behind their screens, passing judgment and feeling superior to whoever they think’s being sexist or racist that day. "
43 " Right then, at my desk, I decided that I was done with it. I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had. "
44 " I wondered how many of the guests were faking something—confidence, friendship, maybe even love. "
45 " The idea that I could somehow end up with a giant chunk of cash at the end of this left me feeling shivery, hot and then cold, like I was coming down with the flu. "
46 " space, nobody could hear you scream; on the Internet, nobody could tell if you were lying. "
47 " I knew that on Monday there was every chance she would ignore me. It wouldn’t matter. I would still want to be her friend, because she was everything I wanted to be. She was beautiful, and funny, and glamorous; a long, unfurled ribbon of cool, where I was a sweaty pretzeled knot of striving "
48 " My aunt and uncle sold their place years ago. They made a kil—a fortune,” he said, cutting himself off before he could say killing. "
49 " Increased attention meant more scrutiny and scorn. "
50 " lovely memory / Until eternity; / She came, she loved, and then she went away. "
51 " or maybe even back to my parents’ place, away from all these beautiful people who, just by living, made me feel inadequate, at once enormous and small. "
52 " if you use people your entire life, if you manipulate them and take from them, and throw them away when you don’t need them anymore, then yes, there are consequences. Bad things happen. "
53 " It’s too empty. Too lonely. No one to see, nothing to do. But he hadn’t told her no. As the first weeks and months had passed, Christina had come to cherish the solitude and the silence, the slant of late-afternoon sun that warmed the floorboards where her ginger cat slept. "
54 " When I looked up, I wasn’t surprised to find that my feet had taken me back to where it had all began. In the daytime, the windows at Dive 75 were dark, the door shut tight. It didn’t look special, but it was, in a way, the place where I’d been born. The site of my greatest shame and my greatest triumph. "
55 " The trick of the Internet, I had learned, was not being unapologetically yourself or completely unfiltered; it was mastering the trick of appearing that way. It was spiking your posts with just the right amount of real… which meant, of course, that you were never being real at all. The more followers I got, the more I thought about that contradiction; the more my followers praised me for being fearless and authentic, the less fearless and authentic I believed myself to be in real life. "
56 " These days, designers who’d rather die than gain ten pounds, designers who’d rather make clothes for purse dogs than fat people, could mouth the right platitudes and make the right gestures. "
57 " nodded. I did know. Once I’d started searching out clothes that fit and looked good on the body I had instead of the one that I wanted, I had discovered exactly the feeling Leela Thakoon was talking about. "
58 " that if you use people your entire life, if you manipulate them and take from them, and throw them away when you don’t need them anymore, then yes, there are consequences. "
59 " It’s almost religious, that belief, that faith that a piece of silk or denim or cotton jersey could disguise your flaws and amplify your assets and make you both invisible and seen, just another normal woman in the world; a woman who deserves to get what she wants. "
60 " Everyone deserves justice, I thought. Even people who lie. And everyone lies. Especially on social media, where there were lies of commission and lies of omission on everyone's page, woven into everyone's public presence. "