The collection / 50 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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02Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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03Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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04Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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05Undated

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.

E. Lockhart / quote

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06Undated

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.

E. Lockhart / quote

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07Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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08Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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09Undated

It's not objective. It's subjective.” Katya hooks her bra behind her back. “It's just what you think, not the truth.

E. Lockhart / quote

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10Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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11Undated

Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they're boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says "Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed"--because he likes you anyways. He'll tolerate your junk

E. Lockhart / quote

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12Undated

One day, she ventured to the palace library and was delighted to find what good company books could be.

E. Lockhart / quote

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13Undated

Get over it, Roo. If you have friends who actually like you, you’re popular enough.

E. Lockhart / quote

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14Undated

Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said.“Don’t you want it?”“Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.”“Why?”Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?”“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said.“So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.

E. Lockhart / quote

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15Undated

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

E. Lockhart / quote

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16Undated

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.

E. Lockhart / quote

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17Undated

When blood dripped on my bare feet or poured over the book I was reading, he was kind.

E. Lockhart / quote

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18Undated

Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,then from my eyes,my ears,my mouth.It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.

E. Lockhart / quote

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19Undated

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.

E. Lockhart / quote

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20Undated

For the old people in my family—Mummy, the aunties, Granddad—the accumulation of beautiful objects is a life goal.Whoever dies with the most stuff wins.Wins what? is what I’d like to know.

E. Lockhart / quote

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21Undated

You have some balls."Frankie hated that expression, ever since Zada had pointed out to her that it equates courage with the male equipment...

E. Lockhart / quote

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22Undated

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.

E. Lockhart / quote

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23Undated

So she did not replay, but played the strategist. She retained more power by withholding an answer.

E. Lockhart / quote

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24Undated

When there's a negative word or expression-immaculate, for example-but the positive is almost never used, and you choose to use it, you become rather amusing. Or pretentious. Or pretentiously amusing, which can sometimes be good. In any case, you are uncovering a buried word.

E. Lockhart / quote

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