Top 250 E. Lockhart Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 4 of 6

151. “I am the center of the story now, Jule said to herself. I don’t have to weigh very little, wear very little, or have my teeth fixed. I am the center.”

— E. Lockhart

152. “In a profound, symbolic gesture, I am giving you this bar of Vosges I got when we went to Edgartown. You can eat it, or just sit next to it and feel superior.”

— E. Lockhart

153. “Jule had loved Immie Sokoloff as well as she knew how to love anyone. She really had.”

— E. Lockhart

154. “The jolt of a new purchase makes Mummy feel powerful, if only for a moment.”

— E. Lockhart

155. “What a horrible death for those poor, dear, naughty dogs.”

— E. Lockhart

156. “Imogen was a New York City child: open-minded in a way Jule had seen only on television, apparently utterly confident in her own desirability as a friend and hostess.”

— E. Lockhart

157. “Men still walk around like the US of A is a big cake store and all the cake is for them.”

— E. Lockhart

158. “But also, he doesn’t like to let us off easy. He wants to make us think – even when we don’t feel like thinking.”

— E. Lockhart

159. “For the college essay, she wrote that in these stories, being orphaned is a precondition for the making of a hero. She also said those comic book heroes aren’t simple heroes, but ’complicated ones who make moral compromises in the same tradition as the orphans in Victorian narratives.”

— E. Lockhart

160. “Dances are generally more fun to think about and get ready for than they actually are when you get there.”

— E. Lockhart

161. “She had been nobody and he had been golden.”

— E. Lockhart

162. “Mirren took off her shoes and the rest of us followed. We tossed stones into the water. We just existed.”

— E. Lockhart

163. “Frankie was beginning to realize that the kind of selective memory exhibited by Dean, Star, and their ilk was neither stupidity nor poor recollection. It was a power play – possibly subconscious on the part of the player – but nevertheless intended to discomfit another person who was in some way perceived as a threat.”

— E. Lockhart

164. “It was like being able to fight, she realized. And being able to change accents. They were powers that lived in your body. They would never leave you, no matter how you looked, no matter who loved or didn’t love you.”

— E. Lockhart

165. “How was I supposed to concentrate on my mental health when my therapist was encased in orange sparkle madness?”

— E. Lockhart

166. “Please, that is so antiquated. The institutions of male supremacy only have real power over you if you buy into that notion. Go found your own club and tell them they can’t join. Or better yet, drop the idea of clubs altogether because they’re exclusionary, and embrace some other, more flexible way of connecting with people.”

— E. Lockhart

167. “These guys, they were so sure of their places in life – so deeply confident of their merit and their future – they didn’t need any kind of front at all.”

— E. Lockhart

168. “In fact, the mark of tragedy became, with time, a mark of glamour.”

— E. Lockhart

169. “We can’t know or say what other people do. You have to think what you want to do to get the situation where you want it to be.”

— E. Lockhart

170. “And now, she was walking down the hall with her books clutched to her chest, looking down at the floor while guys called, “Don’t hide that light under a bushel!”

— E. Lockhart

171. “My head and shoulders melted first, followed by my hips and knees. Before long I was a puddle, soaking into the pretty cotton prints. I drenched the quilt she never finished, rusted the metal parts of her sewing machine. I was pure liquid loss...”

— E. Lockhart

172. “Then he kissed my eyelids. Kind of licked them. And if you’ve never had someone lick your eyelids, you should know that it’s not exactly romantic and it’s even a tiny bit gross, but it feels like the other person really likes you and accepts you somehow.”

— E. Lockhart

173. “Absorbing the fact that sometimes, people do cut you slack and forgive you and want you anyway. Sometimes they do. And when they do, even if it’s not a happy ending, it is delicious.”

— E. Lockhart

174. “Do you still miss Gran?” I ask him as we head toward New Clairmont. “Because I miss her. We never talk about her.” “A part of me died,” he says. “And it was the best part.”

— E. Lockhart

175. “She giggled in a goofy way when she was amused or embarrassed. She felt awkward around popular people, and couldn’t figure out whether she was good-looking or freakishly ugly, because she often felt both within the space of an hour.”

— E. Lockhart

176. “He asked about Dad and about Gran- as if talking about something could make it better. As if wounds needed attention.”

— E. Lockhart

177. “Not one of these symbols of prosperity and taste has any use at all.”

— E. Lockhart

178. “She believed that the way you speak is often more important than anything you have to say.”

— E. Lockhart

179. “He didn’t believe in God anymore and yet he still wished that God would help him.”

— E. Lockhart

180. “Do you still miss Gran?” I ask him as we head toward New Clairmont. “Because I miss her. We never talk about her.” “A part of me died,” he says. “And it was the best part.” “You think so?” I ask. “That is all there is to say about it,” says Granddad.”

— E. Lockhart

181. “Now I have you, which makes me significantly less mental.” “Less mental is good.”

— E. Lockhart

182. “She wasn’t a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.”

— E. Lockhart

183. “He didn’t shut up when people wanted him to, he made them listen – and then he listened in return. He refused to take things lightly, though he was always quick to laugh.”

— E. Lockhart

184. “I guess that is why they’ve been here. I needed them.”

— E. Lockhart

185. “Get over it, Roo. If you have friends who actually like you, you’re popular enough.”

— E. Lockhart

186. “I already have a toothbrush. I don’t know why she would buy me another. That woman buys things just to buy things. It’s disgusting.”

— E. Lockhart

187. “I swear, I have no understanding of other human beings.”

— E. Lockhart

188. “It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can’t see who you are.”

— E. Lockhart

189. “Every curve of his face was familiar, and also, I had never seen him before.”

— E. Lockhart

190. “She had done the deed with credible efficiency. With style, even. She had committed murder with an effing kitty-cat statue in a beautiful state park over a massive and scenic ravine. There had not been a single witness. She had left no blood anywhere.”

— E. Lockhart

191. “Do not think about guys who have broken your heart six ways. It is mentally deranged to chase after heartbreak.”

— E. Lockhart

192. “In the theater,” Adelaide went on, wanting him to understand why she found this so interesting, “your audience doesn’t expect things to look real. Like, you can’t have a real car on the stage, anyway, can you? So instead, you make something obviously artificial. You just create the feeling. And maybe the thing you make, instead of looking real, feels true.”

— E. Lockhart

193. “The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive.”

— E. Lockhart

194. “It had been, she felt, a dumb event preceded by excellent invitations.”

— E. Lockhart

195. “I don’t know if there is a one for me. I think I might like variety.”

— E. Lockhart

196. “The fact that I couldn’t understand his life experience very well, combined with how he was a year ahead of me and really into all his academics, the literary magazine, et cetera – that meant that all the time, he got to be the big man and I was looking up at him with wide eyes. And that was what he liked about me. And why he despised me.”

— E. Lockhart

197. “She wanted to see all his scars, see all of him, and she felt suddenly, intensely certain that he was a safe person to show her own scars to.”

— E. Lockhart

198. “The counselor also suggested meditation. Finding a bit of time each day to focus on deep breathing and the acceptance of life as it was presently occurring. That was not a productive solution either. Frankie did not accept life as it was presently occurring. It was a fundamental element of her character. Life as it was presently occurring was not acceptable to her. Were she to mellow out – would she not become obedient? Would she not stay on the path that stretched ahead of her, nicely bricked?”

— E. Lockhart

199. “You better live this life of yours while you can – real living, the kind where you get a little dirt on your halo – ’cause, babe, not one of us knows how long we got.”

— E. Lockhart

200. “There was nothing I could say in retaliation except something that would confuse her.”

— E. Lockhart