E. Lockhart quotes:

I can't forget things, or ignore them-bad things that happen," I said. "I'm a lay-it-all-out person, a dwell-on-it person, an obsess-about-it person. If I hold things in and try to forget or pretend, I become a madman and have panic attacks. I have to talk.

Singin' in the Rain was most excellent if you like movies where people burst into song and tap-dance. Which I do, though not as much as I like movies where people don't.

There will be all these fifty-year-old women wearing hot pants and squeezing themselves into pretzel shapes and then there will be me. Just reaching for my toes like they're China. 'Hello there! You're so far away, I can't get to you! Can you even hear me?

White Chocolate. Intense, sweet. But not deep. Okay for prom dates or flings, but not to get serious..Milk chocolates are guys you could date for like a few months, and dark chocolates are for love.

And this is my life, getting dumped with no warning. Or liking people who don't like me back, or who don't like me enough, or not as much as they like someone else.

Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what you want from a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.

He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever.

A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.

Our kiss was electric and soft,and tentative and certain,terrifying and exactly right.I felt the love rush from me to Gat and from Gat to me.We were warm and shivering,and young and ancient,and alive.I was thinking, It's true. We already love each other.We already do.

8. Fact: It is a bad idea to date a known cheater, because even if he doesn't cheat on you, you will always know he's capable of it and will never fully trust him. Then you will become even more insecure and neurotic than you already are.

The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.

Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.

It shattered something inside me that hadn't been broken before.

Silence is a protective coating over pain.

Don't call me Alessandro, or this could get ugly. Oh, then may I call you Alice?

Everything doesn't seem like anything when you love someone. Especially when you're young.

I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.

My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.

They know that tragedy is not glamorous. They know it doesn't play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person. Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.

She will not be simple and sweet.She will not be what people tell her she should be.

Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person.

When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful - he probably has.

Be a little kinder than you have to.

I love the idea of the big life - the life that matters, the life that makes a difference. The life where stuff happens, where people take action. The opposite of the life where the girl can't even speak to the boy she likes; the opposite of the life where the friends aren't even good friends, and lots of days are wasted away feeling bored and kind of okay, like nothing matters much.

The problem is I can think whatever I think but I still feel the way I feel.

What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?

Love is when you give someone else the power to destroy you, and you trust them not to do it.

There was nothing I could say in retaliation except something that would confuse her.

...a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.

Gideon laughed. "I like to be direct." "Okay," I said. "But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inserutable and generally send mixed messages." "I doubt it." "Human interaction is not my strong point," I told him. "Not seriously." "Seriously," I said. Thinking: There is so much about me he doesn't know. Gideon put his hand on my leg. "What's your strong point, then?" "Goats," I told him. "I am excellent with goats.

I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine's physical attributes . . . it really bothers me how in books it seems like the only two choices are perfection or self-hatred. As if readers will only like a character who's ideal--or completely shattered.

...Mr. Wodehouse is a prose stylist of such startling talent that Frankie nearly skipped around with glee when she first read some of his phrases. Until her discovery of Something Fresh on the top shelf of Ruth's bookshelf one bored summer morning, Frankie's leisure reading had consister primarily of paperback mysteries she found on the spinning racks at the public library down the block from her house, and the short stories of Dorothy Parker. Wodehouse's jubilant wordplay bore itself into her synapses like a worm into a fresh ear of corn.

I know they're not getting divorced or anything, but when your parents argue it makes the whole universe seem like it's tipping, like everything could change if they got mad enough at each other, like the world isn't a safe place. And of course, that's true, isn't it? The world is not a safe place.

Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them.

These guys, they were so sure of their places in life--so deeply confident of their merit and their future--they didn't need any kind of front at all.

How was I supposed to concentrate on my mental health when my therapist was encased in orange sparkle madness?

You are my girlfriend," whispered Matthew. " You're my girl and I'm your guy, and you're my girl and I'm your guy. Let's not fight." -pg 126

She might, in fact, go crazy, as has happened to a lot of people who break rules. Not the people who play at rebellion but really only solidify their already dominant positions in society...but those who take some larger action that disrupts the social order. Who try to push through the doors that are usually closed to them. They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up--but then one goes insane from giving up.

although she went home that night feeling happier than she had ever been in her short life, she did not confuse the golf course party with a good party, and she did not tell herself she had a pleasant time. it had been, she felt, a dumb event preceded by excellent invitations. what frankie did that was unusual was to imagine herself in control. the drinks, the clothes, the instructions, the food (there had been none), the location, everything. she asked herself: if i were in charge, how could i have done it better?

It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can't see who you are. It is better to lead than to follow. It is better to speak up than stay silent. It is better to open doors than to shut them on people. She will not be simple and sweet. She will not be what people tell her to be. That Bunny Rabbit is dead.

I looked at her. my lovely, tall mother with her pretty coil of hair and her hard, bitter mouth. Her veins were never open. Her heart never leapt out to flop helplessly on the lawn. She never melted into puddles. She was normal. Always. At any cost.

Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them," said Mr. Sutton. "You show them the tiniest edge of your secret, but the rest you keep under wraps.

Face it. There's not going to be a happy ending... at least not with this hero. So don't go mooning around thinking that your breakup is only the crisis before the big romantic scene, because I'm here to tell you that it's not. When you are dumped, you are dumped, and the guy isn't going to change his mind and realize that suddenly he loves you instead of that girl he's flirting with in lunchroom, now that he's free.

If those are your friends, you've got no need for enemies.

Always do what you're afraid to do. ... I will prove myself strong when they think I am sick. I will prove myself brave when they think I am weak.

Always do what you're afraid to do.

I can feel like a hag some days if I want! And I can tell everybody how insecure I am if I want! Or I can be pretty and pretend to think I'm a hag out of fake modesty-I can do that if I want, too. Because you, Livingston, are not the boss of me and what kind of girl I become.

See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be

Never take a seat in the back of the room. Winners sit up front.

We should not accept an evil we can change.

We shouldn't piss them off, explained Frankie, because who knows what they'll do now that they've united.

We can't know or say what other people do. You have to think what you want to do to get the situation where you want it to be.

Sex Ed - when I finally got to take it - was all about biology and birth control and nothing about anything that actually goes on between people.

Other people apologize and don't mean t "Sorry, but you shouldn't have..." or "Sorry, but I just didn't..." They apologize while telling you that they were right all along, which is the opposite of an actual apology.

I sit around too much, waiting for other people to do stuff and angsting about stuff they've done, without doing anything myself.

There's something about seeing a guy's feelings written down, something about him taking that risk and committing that heart to paper, that means so much more than anything he could just say.

Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and itâ??s the very last piece, but you let him have it.

Do not think about guys who have broken your heart six ways. It is mentally deranged to chase after heartbreak.

Dances are generally more fun to think about and get ready for than they actually are when you get there.

She doesn't feel like crying anymore.

...our family is white as far back on the family tree as I've ever looked, and I guess I picture people white white white unless someone tells me otherwise

I think it was the institution...I was trying to master it.

Frankie appreciated both the accolades and the rejections equally, because both meant she'd had an impact. She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.

I say, thirteen is too many dogs for good mental health. Five is pretty much the limit. More than five dogs and you forfeit your right to call yourself entirely sane. Even if the dogs are small.

I like to be direct." "Okay," I said. "But I warn you, I like to be evasive, inserutable and generally send mixed messages." "I doubt it." "Human interaction is not my strong point," I told him.

Because on some level, even though it never turns out to be true, and even though I should know better, I still expect life to be like the movies.

If you don't want to be in an argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you.

I swear, I have no understanding of other human beings.

She had been nobody and he had been golden.

I don't know if there is a one for me. I think I might like variety.

They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.

You can't have an ending. It's impossible. Because unlike in the movies, life goes on. You're never at the end until you die.

..we'll deal with it, because the good outweighs the bad.

Absorbing the fact that sometimes, people do cut you slack and forgive you and want you anyway. Sometimes they do. And when they do, even if it's not a happy ending, it is delicious