“Life's a lot different from what people pretend. That's why pretending is fun. I used to think it was some special wickedness of my own that made such queer things happen. Now I'm beginning to guess that everybody's like that.”

“I've never met a girl who thinks like you.""A lot of people tell me that," she said, digging at a cuticle. "But it's the only way I know how to think. Seriously. I'm just telling you what I believe. It's never crossed my mind that my way of thinking is different from other people's. I'm not trying to be different. But when I speak out honestly, everybody thinks I'm kidding or playacting. When that happens, I feel like everything is such a pain!”

“Imagination is what I have when I'm on my own. Pretending is what I do in the world. There's a space in between those two spaces, maybe like the space between life and death, but it's hard to navigate, and even harder to understand. Then again, I sometimes think that maybe that's just the way life is, and what I've been searching for is something different.”

“You're just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they're already in us. That's why we pretend them in the first place.”

“The truth is .. I'm okay with people not liking me. I'm not okay with them pretending that they do. Keep it real. Everybody ain't for everybody.”

“I'm just like that woman really. Or rather, that's what Iused to be like: someone pretending to know everything,hidden away in my own silence”