Kristin Walker

“Because from what I've seen of marriages and relationships, there aren't any rules. You deal with what comes, like anything else in life. There's no template. No freaking outline. And that's what makes relationships interesting, right? The element of surprise.”

“That's how you know if a friend is the best kind. If time and miles get between you, yet when you come back together, it's like you were never apart.”

“Nothing said Clothes to Wear When You Want to Impress a Guy You Initially Shot Down, But Now You Realise You Like Him and Want to Get Him Back. Where was the outfit for that?”

“I gaped. "You are not seriously that chauvinistic?""Hmmm..." He stroked his chin dramatically. "Maybe not in real life." Hillbilly again. "But as your fake husband...yes, I think I am."I eyed him up and down. "I need to call the Guinness Book of Records or Gray's Anatomy or something, because I am standing here looking at the single largest asshole ever known to man.”

“I hate dancing. I mean, I don't hate it. I just - I'm terrible. I'm totally into music, but I really can't dance."Phew. Relief. "Yeah, you said that this morning. Neither can I." I hitched my thumb at the couples on the dance floor. "Not that I'd call that dancing.""Heh. Yeah.""Sometimes I wish I lived back when people had balls."Oh God. That did not come out right.”

“Why had I ever cared about happy endings? Happy beginnings were so much better.”

“Now, I want you to look at each other. Really look. And then I'd like you to each say something positive about the other person." "Now Todd, you go first."Todd eye balled me up and down."She appears to have all her teeth"."OOh, good one,Todd," I cooed,then turned to maggie and smiled sweetly. " And Todd smells very little like a pile of goat crap.”

“According to Marcie's mom, only people with no class actually use the word class. If you have it, then you never talk about it.""Oh". Johnny nodded slowly. "Just like herpes.”

“Jueves, 28 de noviembreEsto es lo que he aprendido sobre el matrimonio esta semana:1. Deberías casarte con alguien a quien le gusten las cualidades que posees, no con alguien que piensa que esas cualidades apestan.2. Deberías casarte con alguien que te permita ser el tipo de persona que eres por dentro, no con alguien que te obliga a ser una persona que no eres.3. Deberías sentirte de esa misma forma con respecto a la persona con la que te cases.4. Si encuentras a una persona que se ajuste a 1, 2 y 3, entonces estás listo para la vida. Pero estate preparado para cuando ellos mueran, porque ellos se llevaren parte de ti con ellos.5. Pero dejan parte de sí mismos detrás de si, también. Lo que, supongo, que es una cosa buena.”

“Jueves 31 de Octubre.Tengo unas cuantas cosas que decir sobre el matrimonio, de cómo lo veo. Primero, ¿cuál es el punto? ¿Hay alguna razón para pasar por la tortura ―o para torturar a los de tu alrededor― sólo para decir que estás casada? ¿Dónde está la retribución? Y segundo, si te casas sólo para tener hijos, olvídalo. Ellos lo sabrán y realmente te joderán. Así que, otra vez, ¿cuál es el punto?El sexo no puede ser la razón, porque si me preguntas, tienes mejores oportunidad de echar un polvo si tienes disponible a toda la población de la Tierra para ti, que a UNA sola persona. Y por cierto, ¿qué tan aburrido será tener sexo con la misma persona por cincuenta años? Para mí, el matrimonio parece una institución arcaica que quedó de las eras donde lo importante era la supervivencia de las especies, y la gente no pasaba los treinta y cinco años de vida. Es tiempo que el matrimonio siga el camino del dodo: apenas recordado, peron definitivamente extinto.”

“Supongo que lo que trato de decir es que no puedes saber con quién vas a terminar. Puedes pasar toda tu vida soñando con un tipo de persona, sólo para encontrar la felicidad con alguien completamente diferente. Alguien con quien creías no tener nada en común podría terminar siendo tu chico soñado. Y sabes que es él porque te conviertes en una mejor persona. Él saca esas magnificas cosas en ti que no sabías o creías que estaban ahí. Y si eres muy afortunada,harás lo mismo con él.Hace incluso mucho más increíble que las personas se hallen los unos a los otros, considerando que la mayoría de ellos, al principio, está buscando en los lugares equivocados.”

“Lord love you,” Ms. Eulalie said, “but you tell lies like Ms. Franny sings: hard to listen to and even harder to believe.”

“You think it's easy to find someone? You think they'll just show up at your door and love you, and everything will be perfect and turn out like a fairy tale? Ha! Like that ever happens.”

“So he likes being mean to you," she said. "And you like that he likes being mean to you.""And I like being mean to him, too, don't forget.""Of course not. Pleasure from meaness. There's a name for it: sadomasochism.""Thanks a lot." I said. "That's just what I need. A mental picture of Todd Harding laced up in a black leather bodysuit with a whip in one hand and his wang in the other.”

“Designer clothes, bubblegum pop music, celebrity heartthrobs - I couldn't give a fat rat's hairy ass. Just give me my hotdog and Jane Austen, and I'm good.”

“All in all, he looked kind of ... dangerous. Like he could kick somebody's ass, big time, but with style. Like a suave, tough-guy super spy.”

“It was seven-thirty. The dance started in half an hour. And I was buck-naked. Which probably would have made an interesting night, but the last time I'd checked I was neither a porn star nor a prostitute.I'd already tried on every half-decent outfit, every quarter-decent outfit, even every limit-of-f-as-decent-approaches-zero-is-infinity outfit.”

“Around here news travels faster than mono, and by the end of the day, the whole school had heard about Todd's and my standoff with Principal Miller and Maggie Klein. By the time the story circulated and came back around to me, I had apparently bitch-slapped Maggie Klein and then tongued Todd in front of Principal Miller.Oh, and Mom was a former showgirl in an all-gay revue.”

“I tensed up like someone had just given me a surprise rectal exam.”

“I"d done more apologizing in the past week than a politician with a crack pipe and a sex addiction.”

“So I've made up with Mar. I've made up with Señor Shitslacks. I'd even forged a shaky truce with Amanda. The only person I still needed to deal with was Johnny Mercer. Oh yeah, I had to kill Gabe Walker, too, but there was plenty of time for that.”

“Rhythm? Not only do I have to defy gravity. I have to have rhythm while I do it?”

“Amanda doesn't hate you. She's jealous of you.""What? Todd listen. Drugs are bad, buddy. You shouldn't do them first thing in the morning. Wait until after lunch at least.”

“If I was Todd's wife in real life, I'd have to kill myself. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic. I wouldn't kill myself. But I'd definitely turn lesbian, at the very least.”

“Sorry, Maggie, but I'm not into bondage. Even the subconscious kind.”

“Todd came toward me with the squad trailing behind him like a street gang of angry thugs with breasts.”

“She crashed. I think she was literally high on sugar.Seriously I thought she was going to start free basing pixy stix.”

“He isn't so bad.""You're not fake-married to him.”

“You're not gay, are you?What?!I mean you've never had a boyfriend. And you're not exactly...girly.I'm not gay. I'm just unpopular.”

“It's refreshing to see you using your psychology skills for evil as well as for good.”

“So he likes being mean to you. And you like that he likes bean mean to you.And I like being mean to him too.”

“You know, if you're going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious. For starters, try not to standing in the middle of a field, gawking at your prey.”

“Johnny made me feel like I was clever without trying to be. And pretty. And valued. He made everything about me seem more special.Like, say I was a song. Well, Johnny made me feel as though I’d been remixed. The melody didn’t change, but it wasn’t just the same one-dimensional sequence of notes anymore. Instead, he brought out all these harmonies — these low and high notes — that made the music fuller. No more discord or dissonance. Around Johnny, I was the best possible rendition of myself.”

“Not that anyone really knows what one is. And yet, people still find each other. It’s a freaking miracle, when you think about it.”

“She set her hands neatly in her lap. “But you just said he liked you.” “No, I said he enjoys my company. That is, he enjoys hating me. Or pretending to hate me. I don’t know which. But I’m finding it difficult to completely dislike someone who gets pleasure from having me around. ...“So he likes being mean to you,” she said. “And you like that he likes being mean to you.” “And I like being mean to him, too, don’t forget.” “Of course not. Pleasure from meanness. There’s a name for it: sadomasochism.”

“Over the years, I’d learned that under the bed was the best place to keep anything I didn’t want found, because there was so much crap—papers, magazines, dirty socks, grocery bags—that no one would ever suspect that anything of value was under there. Sort of like hiding in plain sight.”

“And I’m sorry,” Big Earrings said, “But how is some course going to teach them how marriage works? I’ve been married three times, and I haven’t figured it out yet.” She snorted. “I figured out how to call a lawyer, though.”

“He said, “So . . . do you like music?” It was a pretty stupid question. I mean, who doesn’t like music? Okay, maybe some puritanical zealot out in Hicksville. But really. It was kind of like asking, “Do you like food?” “Isn’t oxygen great?” “Have you got skin? I do.” I knew what he meant, though.”

“I had started to sweat like a beauty queen at the last minute of a pregnancy test.”

“I have been advised to try to find one redeeming quality in him to focus on. So far, the only thing I can think of is that he is breathing. But even that is questionable, because he is very likely a zombie or some other form of the undead.”

“Marcie fancied herself an amateur therapist at times. I was her favorite patient.”

“I couldn't exactly blame Jane Austen for being a romantic. What the hell else was there to do back then for fun?”

“Your neck smells like cheese,' I said.'Oh,' He said, 'that's my cheese cologne. I have a whole selection. Chedder, American, Swiss.”

“And i was buck-naked. Which probably would have made for an interesting night, but the last time i'd checked i was neither a porn star or a prostitute.”

“It's not fair to spend so much time working towards something, only to have someone else's lapse in judgment, poor choice, one mistake, destroy it all.”

“So I wonder if true love is more subtle. If it sneaks up or stands there next to you, and you don't recognize that it's true love until you turn and look at tis thing that's been right there with you all along, and you realize that you never want to be without it.”

“It makes it even more incredible that people find each other, considering most of them are looking in the wrong places to begin with.”

“You can't tell who you're going to end up with. You might spend your whole life dreaming about one type of person, only to find happiness with somebody completely different.”

“I couldn't help daydreaming that I was Elizabeth and Gabe was Mr. Darcy. fighting against his blossoming feelings for me. Discovering that his passion was beyond his control and finding me more and more desirable each time we met.”

“You look at me but never see the love I feel for you. But in your eyes, I see the skies. The endlessness of time and blue. Like water that span the raging sea. And break upon the sandbar of your heart.”