“Life in general was cruel and offered only different types of voids and chaos. The only way to tolerate it, to have any hope of escaping it, I reasoned, was to know my own strength, to defy life by surviving… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share Image
Does something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
“When dealing with my mother, one always had to act in a delicate and prescribed way, though the exact rules of protocol seemed to… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Anxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential ingredients in suffering from pain, as opposed to feeling pain pure and simple. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
All narratives, even the confusing, are implicitly hopeful; they speak of a world that can be ordered, and thus understood. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Partly I was honing my self-consciousness into a torture device, sharp and efficient enough to last me the rest of my life. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
“Reinforced to me again and again was how I was a ‘brave girl’ for not crying, a ‘good girl’ for not complaining, and soon… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Animals were both the lives I took care of and the lives who took care of me. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else. — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
This singularity of meaning--I was my face, I was ugliness--though sometimes unbearable, also offered a possible point of escape. It became the launching pad… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people... — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
“The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was only October. Halloween… — Lucy Grealy Copy Share
