Hsinju > Books: faves-2020‎ (22)

It must be nice to live in a world where you don’t see the darkness in people.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but I want to understand you, okay? I want to help you get through this. If you want to talk, I’m here. If you don’t . . . well, I’m still here. Always.” – Krys

“You did nothing wrong. I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe it.” – Krys

Me against the world is frightening. Us against the world is comforting.

Sometimes reality strays so far from what’s rational that we can only explain it through fantasy.

“[W]hy settle for being a son of the system, when you can mother a movement?” – Saysa

“I am sick of roses, and I am horny for revenge.”

And you walked to your death like a lover.

We’re here, at their mercy, and have no power in this situation.

“You’re not a terrible coach. You were just not meant to be mine becaus

“You’re not a terrible coach. You were just not meant to be mine because you were meant to be so much more.” — Madison

“After I lost Wiley, I put everything into my sport. It’s all I have. And I will give you everything I can if you help me be the best.” — Madison

“When your girlfriend is dying, you talk about them a lot because you know you’re never going to have them. It’s the only way you’ll ever think about or talk about kids you’ll never name or watch grow up. It’s the only way you can get through the awful treatments and terrible side-effects. You talk about the wedding you’d have, picturing saying, ‘I do,’ and you fantasize about the honeymoon where the only thing you’d worry about is which drink to order on the beach or about the fact that you need to leave the room and take some pictures so that people don’t think you just had sex the whole time.” — Madison

“It’s the person you love who holds you at night, walks beside you, and makes winning those medals worth it.” — Robin

[Soraya] wished for sleep, for a temporary reprieve from thought and memory, but instead, she spent the time sinking into a kind of waking nightmare, too awake to find peace, but too exhausted in every possible way to pull herself out of it.

“Be angry for yourself.” — Parisa

“You’re a good chef.”
[Gabriella] paused. “Ryan. I’m the best chef. Sto

“You’re a good chef.”
[Gabriella] paused. “Ryan. I’m the best chef. Stop by my truck one day.”

“This was their great love, and they blew it. Now they have to live a subpar existence, settling for less because they didn’t go after what their hearts truly reached for, messy as it would have been.” — Becca

“The ego is a horrible roadblock on the road to achievement.” — Gabriella

I am so grateful that you are safe at home, away from this place, even though your absence for me is like a wound that won’t heal. – Johanna's letter

"No. No way. You don't get to decide that. You don't get to decide what's important for us. You can choose for yourself, but no one else. When you cho

"No. No way. You don't get to decide that. You don't get to decide what's important for us. You can choose for yourself, but no one else. When you chose not to respect us, we chose not to respect you. [...] Have you ever even considered that something that's trivial to you could mean ... so much more to someone else? You don't get to take the easy road out and just respect the parts of people you recognize. And, pro-tip: If you find yourself in a similar situation in the future where you're surrounded by people you don't understand, try listening. It'll work a lot better for you than talking." – Jules

“I think you know how to love.”

[Paz] hadn’t known air could taste like this, so wide, so open. Her body a welcome. Skin awake. The world was more than she had known, even if only for this instant, even if only in this place.

They’d been forming a kind of family, woven from castoffs, like a quilt made from strops of leftover fabric no one wanted. They wanted each other. They had to stay woven. They would not fray.

Now here [Romina] was again, suspended in her own desire as if desire didn’t live inside you at all but instead it was you who lived inside your desire, as if a woman’s wanting could be oceanic, vast enough to be swum, to be submerged in.