Nora Raleigh Baskin

“It occurred to me that a lot of beauty has to do with believing it yourself. That half of what we see is just the way it is presented.”

“In fact, being a unique individual is as much of a farce as trying to be like everyone else. Maybe more.”

“Because there is a need to hear one story and to tell another.”

“He says, "But, hey, wouldn't it be weird-if Bennu wakes up from the operation, and he's all tall and stuff, and then he doesn't recognize himself in the mirror?”

“These were such friendly people, they didn't notice how crabby we were, and before you knew it everyone was as happy as they were.”

“Romance goes like this:Boy gets girl.Boy loses girl.Boy gets girl again.The end.It can't be any other way.”

“When I write, I can be heard. And known. But nobody has to look at me. Nobody has to see me at all.”

“All we are, all we can be, are the stories we tell," he says, and he is talking as if he is talking only to me. "Long after we are gone, our words will be all that is left, and who is to say what really happened or even what reality is? Our stories, our fiction, our words will be as close to truth as can be. And no one can take that away from you.”

“But really, if you ask me, there is only one kid of plot. One. Stuff happens. That's it.”

“There are many, many different worlds to live in. And sometimes there is no connection from one to another.”

“Boys are not supposed to cry. Because when they do, things get worse. Then suddenly you have two problems. You have whatever it was that made you cry in the first place, and then you also have the problem that you are a boy crying. And someone is bound to let you know this is worse. So now you have two problems. ”

“I am like a leaf on a river, riding along the top of the water, not quite floating, not quite drowning. So I can't stop, and I can't control the direction I am going. I can feel the water, but I never know which way I am heading.But I might feel lucky this day and avoid the sticks and branches scratching and pulling at me. ”

“Why do people want everyone to act just like they do? Talk like they do. Look like they do. Act like they do. And if you don't— If you don't, people make the assumption that you do not FEEL what they feel. And then they make the assumption— That you must not feel anything at all. ”

“Sometimes there is nothing to hold me together.”

“Old elbows," she told me. "A woman's elbows always give her age away.”