See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be

— E. Lockhart

She will not be simple and sweet. She will not be what people tell her she should be.

— E. Lockhart

Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

— E. Lockhart

So she did not replay, but played the strategist. She retained more power by withholding an answer.

— E. Lockhart

Suffer. You could say it means endure, but that's not exactly right

— E. Lockhart

The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.

— E. Lockhart

The movies make the brooding guy the hero – the guy with problems the guy who carries a gun, the gun with unresolved anger, the guy with a chip on his shoulder, the guy who’s a vampire – and they tell you that you can have the mythical happy ending with that same brooding guy. But in reality, the brooding guy is cranky. He doesn’t reply to emails. He doesn’t call. Furthermore, he’s only half there when you’re talking to him, and he doesn’t chase you when you run. You feel insecure all the time. You get needy and sad, and you hate yourself got being needy. If you don’t know why he’s brooding, you’re shut out. And if you do know why he’s brooding, you’re still shut out. (Because he’s busy brooding.)

— E. Lockhart

Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide, and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes, my ears, my mouth. It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.

— E. Lockhart

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

— E. Lockhart

The universe seems really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.

— E. Lockhart