Books

"I look at the man, his face impatient, eager to suckle at the teat of my vast cheese knowledge. I feel like telling him that every entry level is also an exit level. That all hierarchy is an illusion. That he should follow his heart."

You never know what spaces might turn into graves. It felt bad— OK , sickening—when I realized I’d partied on her grave, but you just never know if you’re standing on a spot where someone has been or will be beaten to death. It’s cheesy, but sometimes my concerns about the history of violence taint everything, even Shakespeare. That quote “All the world’s a stage” becomes “All the world’s a grave.”
I tossed empty bottles on her grave before it became her grave. I was allowed to escape. I was allowed to walk away from that spot.
Sophia was not. Guilt is a ghost. Guilt interrupts narratives. It does so impolitely. Ghosts have no etiquette. What do they need it for? There is no Emily Post for ghosts.

"Maybe it will be good to remember the feeling of being alone. I’m always running around telling everyone how important it is for people to be alone for a while, which is weird because the only thing I learned while living alone was that I hate myself."

I got a pedicure each time I promised myself I’d stop doing heroin—which is to say, I got pedicures that whole summer. Pedicures gave me the false notion I was about to get my shit together. I wasn’t functioning well—my brain cells were spent, and my serotonin was depleted. Sitting despondent in a vinyl chair was as good as it got.

"I was thinking: Girls get scared way too often. Girls get stupidly scared. I was not scared. Telling myself not to be scared kind of worked. "