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"When she was little, she'd liked to pretend that stars were really lights anchoring distant islands, as if she wasn't looking up but only out across a dark sea. She knew the truth now but still found stars comforting, especially in their sameness. A sky full of burning replicas."
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"Although he never speaks of how or what or why, I know that his childhood was difficult, that his parents broke his heart. Books and excess poundage are his insulation against pain."
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Personal Development
"I do not remember asking adults about anything, except as a last resort."
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Personal Development
"Schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It's accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics."
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Personal Development
"A child is child."
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Personal Development
"It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these."
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Personal Development
"Granny," said Esk, in the exasperated and remarkably adult voice children use to berate their wayward elders. "I don't think you quite understand. I don't want to hit the ground. It's never done anything to me."
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Personal Development
"Leading up to Christmas, there was talk of Santa. But I'd never even heard of Santa. Bunty, one of the workers who I grew to love, tried to explain, 'He brings little angels like you, presents."
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Personal Development
"A child's best friend is often the one telling bedtime stories."
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Personal Development
"The happiness of childhood, the calming of a child's fears and the healthy development of its self-confidence depend directly upon love."
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Personal Development
"I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time."
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"Maybe Lindsay and I are best friends and we hate each other, both. Maybe I'm only one math class away from being a slut like Anna Cartullo. Maybe I am like her, deep down. Maybe we all are: just one lunch period away from eating alone in the bathroom. I wonder if it's ever really possible to know the truth about someone else, or if the best we can do is just stumble into each other, heads down, hoping to avoid collision."
Friendship
"That's a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it's not really true. It's like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart."
Survival
"Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever."
Time
"Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run."
Memory
"It's the rule of the wilds. You must be bigger, and stronger, and tougher. A coldness radiates through me, a solid wall that is growing, piece by piece, in my chest. He doesn't love me.He never loved me.It was all a lie."The old Lena is dead." I say, and then push past him. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone.You must hurt or be hurt."
Strength
"It was so strange, the way that life moved forward: the twists and the dead ends, the sudden opportunities. She supposed if you could predict or foresee everything that was going to happen, you'd lose the motivation to go through it all. The promise was always in the possibility."
Opportunity
"Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do."
Death
"That was the problem with the outside world, the human world. The whole thing was made up puzzles, of a language she didn't quite speak."
Perception
"I guess that's just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up."
Sacrifice
"I don't understand how everything changes, how the layers of your life get buried. Impossible. At some point, at some time, we must all explode."
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