Ashley Herring Blake Quotes

Even girls made of stars are captives, bound at the wrists and traded like property. Even girls made of stars aren't asked, aren't believed, aren't considered worth the effort unless they can offer something in return. Even girls made of stars buy into those lies sometimes.

This. This is why I never said anything. Because no one ever believes the girl.

Because when they thought the stars were sticking to her, really all the loneliness and sadness were falling off. The stars were underneath.

It’s changed me forever, but changed doesn’t have to mean broken.

And I'm not sure I ever will recover from what Mr. Knoll did. Not fully. It's changed me forever, but changed doesn't have to mean broken.

We are worth the telling. We are worth the fight. We are worth a good life and love after.

What else is there for any girl to do, when everyone but her can just forget everything like a random bad dream?

She felt raw, a painting that wasn't dry yet. One hard nudge and she'd smear all over the place.

Maybe 'perfect' was just another word for belonging. For feeling like yourself. It didn't mean things weren't hard. It just meant they were right.

It's such a little thing, this skirt. For other girls, maybe it's makeup or a sport or having sex or not having sex or writing or music or kicking ass in school or wearing your hair so it looks like the sun's unruly rays. I think every girl has a thing or two, tiny details in her life that say This is me. I'm done hiding. I'm done feeling ashamed.

Sexuality is complicated. It’s not static. People change and sexuality can change too.

Belief isn't easy. It isn't black and white.

Mom . . . Dad . . . I need to tell you guys something.” For Hannah. For Charlie. For all the girls whose names I’ll never know. For me. Girl made of flesh and bone.

My belief seems to break her. It breaks me, too. To believe one person is to disbelieve another.

For a long time, when I was a little younger, I thought that was how every girl saw other girls— this mix between beauty and awe and curiosity, a thin layer of lust just underneath. Took until I was fourteen to realize that no, the way I thought about other girls was a little different.

That's a lot of feels,” Iris said. “And you know how I hate those,” Astrid said, replying without humor

Astrid Parker was loved, no matter what her mother thought of her. No matter what choices she made. And that love gave her the courage to choose herself.

Tattoos vined down her bare arms. God, Claire loved a good tattooed arm.

How was Ivy supposed to know how to handle all these feelings for June, all these feelings at all, if everything she saw and read about and heard about was all boy-girl, girl-boy?

It's okay not to be okay. Most people don't think so, but I do. It has to be okay to not be okay all the time

This is what I want,” Delilah said. “My whole life, this is what I’ve wanted. A best friend. Someone who gets me, who accepts me. Someone who fights like hell to get me to see that they love me. Someone who lets me love them back. Someone who’s so goddamn beautiful, she makes my toes curl. Someone who calls me on my bullshit. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who makes me look at her like this and looks at me the same way. Someone who . . . who’s my home.

It occurred to Delilah that this was probably the longest she'd ever really looked at her stepsister. She'd spent years perfecting the art of avoidance, of protection, of never letting Astrid see how much Delilah was hurting. If eyes were the window into the soul, Delilah's had long been shuttered.

but she was starting to believe you were never too old to feel lonely, to wonder where you belonged in the world.

The feeling was wild and sort of unpredictable, like a good summer storm.

I still kept so much from her at that time, but she made me feel like, someday, I wouldn't anymore - she made me feel so many somedays.

I spent a lot of time,” Iris went on, “convincing myself I wasn’t built to last, wasn’t built for romance, for love. But maybe . . .” Tears bloomed into her eyes. “Maybe I was just built for you.

Here's the thing about wishes: they're always changing on you. They're either dying out or they're realized, and then they're not wishes anymore. They're only truly alive in their anticipation" -Grace

And Delilah had gotten through life by putting herself first, only concentrating herself with what she knew was true, because she’d learned a long time ago that she couldn’t control anyone but herself. She couldn’t change anyone’s mind, couldn’t make someone love her who had no interest in doing so, and couldn’t keep someone from leaving her if that’s what they wanted to do.

Sadness is awkward. Grief is awkward. A missing mother is awkward, no matter what form that missing takes. And no one likes awkward. No one knows what to do with it unless you’re the person used to receiving all those averted gazes.

The best lies are layered in between solid truths.

Delilah Green didn’t care. Because they’d never once cared about her.

Mom's told me more than once that she loves purple because it's this beautiful mix of blue's calm stability and red's fierce energy." -Grace

Okay, I’ll give you that Wuthering Heights is the least romantic book in the history of Victorian romances, but Jane Eyre?” “Is that the one where the douchebag hid his wife away in the attic and then lied about it to the girl he wanted to bang who was, like, half his age?” Claire winced. “Well, when you put it like that.

She felt her friends on either side of her, gentle hands on her back, waiting for her. Loving her. Because Iris Kelly was worth loving. And she always had been.

If I've learned anything in the past six months, it's that life is a fickle little bitch and there's not one damn thing I can do to tame her. It's almost laughable, really.

If eyes were the window into the soul, Delilah’s had long been shuttered.

This is okay?" he asks. "Yes." The word explodes through me, empowering and sexy, and I can't get my bra off fast enough.

But there are too many other unsaid things that keep me from saying anything at all.

And what was more, Delilah didn’t want this to be only that, just kisses and coming. She wanted . . . this. Roller skating and amazing sex and this peaceful sort of talking and not talking, cuddling and questions and a place to belong. A person to belong to.

Thank you for coming to save me.” She laughs, but it’s soft. “I didn’t save you. I can’t save anyone.” “You can. You did.” “I just hate that we hurt like this, you know?” “What do you mean?” She grabs my hand and squeezes. “I think about the things we’ve talked about in Empower. Articles we’ve read about all the girls who were thrown away by boys like they meant nothing. All the times a girl’s voice seemed to mean less than a boy’s. All the times the courts sent out a shit ruling on a rape case. It never really hit me, you know? I mean, it did, but not like this. I never thought it’d be my story. Or yours. I never wanted to let this be our story.

For everyone who figured it out late in life.

If Stevie had a brand, it was an underwhelming amalgam of anxiety and childish dreams she couldn’t seem to relinquish

My heart is a wild beast, just like the dog. It’s barking and gnashing its teeth, chasing the rest of my body, which feels like it’s trying to leave my heart behind.

But then she moved her arms around Ruby, pressed her cheek to the top of her hair. She exhaled what felt like a decade’s worth of anxiety, and accepted the girl’s love.

feel like this is what it was all for, all that patience and daring.

You and me, we're sandy spoons and fireworks, lighthouses and wishes and peanut butter" -Grace

I didn't break then and I'm not breaking now.

Did she actually want a sister and Delilah simply didn’t know how to be one? How to be anything to anyone as a little girl who’d just lost the only person who’d ever made her feel wanted?

Even when we were together, in those quiet name-whispering moments, he never knew me. Never. And yeah, that was my fault, my choice, but it still stings that he never even realized it. Never knew I was holding back.

A weird thing I'm learning about grief - grief in all its forms - is that you can feel almost everything once. You'd think all those tears, all that laughter, all that deep sadness and even deeper hope would still the lungs and stop the heart. But no. It's sort of the opposite. And that's the funny thing about wishes - only when one comes true do you realize the full scope of that wish. What you really wanted. The beauty of it. The complexity. The cost." -Grace

Ruby saw the world in a way that felt familiar to Delilah, an artist’s point of view, and it could be a lonely way to move through life. Ruby wasn’t alone, of course. She had myriad people who cared about her, so she and Delilah were different in that way. But in other ways, with this little birdbath and what it might symbolize, they were alike.

And that's the funny thing about wishes - only when one comes true do you realize the full scope of that wish. What you really wanted. The beauty of it. The complexity. The cost.

You know I’m very proud of you. It takes a brave person to challenge the institutional misogyny of the patriarchal system.

Romance was nothing but brain chemicals and some pretty words, a nice setting. That’s all it was. A fiction brains told to hearts.

Iris lifted her glass. “To shitty men and the women who put them in their goddamn place.

The words fall out of my mouth like rain- I felt them coming, smelled them in the air, but there was nothing I could do to stop them.

I watch her duck into the building, a cavern in my chest so huge, I'm sure my next breath will flip me inside out.

If anyone can inspire you to believe in real, honest-to-God love stories again, it's William Shakespeare.

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

There’s running from something,” Angela said, “and there’s running to something new.

In my heart’s sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poet’s gloss .

Love isn’t really love unless it’s a little scary.

I just want to move on.

The whole world was crying as everything fell apart.

Because she was worth the telling.

Only music could really do that -- bring everything to the surface, make the memories alive, sharpen the time-dulled pain to a point.

Delilah Green didn’t care. Because they’d never once cared about her. She slumped against the door, pressed her forehead to the thick inlaid glass. Not caring was fucking exhausting.

Such a loaded word - live. It could simply mean existing. Heart pumping blood, lungs taking in air. Or it could meant settling into something. Being a part of what's around you. Investing." -Grace

She knew it was juvenile - she was thirty years old and a professional for god's sake - but she was starting to believe you were never too old to feel lonely, to wonder where you belong in the world.

I like this kind of quiet, the BFF kind where you're not alone but can think and you know your best friend is thinking too and it's all okay because you know that all the things you're thinking are safe.

Hannah pulls the hair elastic from her ponytail and flicks the rubber band to the asphalt. She never breaks her stride, but she slides her fingers through her shiny strands and tousles them into something slightly less smooth and tame. It's not the beautiful, tangled mess it usually is. But it's close.

Charlie had known she's liked girls since she was twelve, so that was no secret. And I knew I did as well, but I liked boys, too, and it took me a while to figure out I could like both in different ways and for different reasons and that was actually a thing.

However, this is the book I needed, and I hope, in some ways, it’s the book you needed too. This is the book that reminded me that despite a system and a culture that is perpetually against us, that lets our oppressors go free, that disbelieves our words, there is hope. There is love. There is comfort. There is healing. There is life after abuse. A good life. It’s not an easy one. It’s not the same one we had before. But it is still ours. And nothing and no one will take it from us. We are worth the telling. We are worth the fight. We are worth a good life and love after.

In her place was a woman whose heart felt tender and raw. A woman who was tired, so fucking tired of fighting the way Stevie Scott made her feel.

She simply was, with another disaster by her side—because Stevie was one hundred percent an adorable disaster—and it felt like that first gulp of cold water after a long hike.

You showed up for family, even if you got paid for it and gritted your teeth the entire time.

I'm left with a mouthful of words that wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Just because you're scared to like someone doesn't make the like go away.

His eyes said everything. They always did.

I tell myself that I don't need him. But he's the only person I want right now.

I wanted you. I wanted us. You made all of this... I don't know. It sounds crazy, but you, in my life- knowing you almost made everything worth it.

This shouldn't make sense," I say. "What?" "Us. You and me." He presses his forehead to mine. "But we do. Maybe it's crazy, yeah, but it makes sense. We make sense.

Si quieres algo de verdad, cariño, las estrellas no te ayudarán. Tienes que estirar la mano y tomarlo

Aunt Iris finally punched you, huh?” she said. “I’m glad to see my work is noted and appreciated,” Iris said.

For as long as I could remember, I had been apologising for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead. Maybe this would be the last conversation I would ever have with Grant. Maybe not. Either way, I realized, I wasn't sorry I existed anymore. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now-I believed now-that I deserved to be loved.

And it was from these images, Claire, beautiful and in pain in the river, that Delilah got the idea for a series that would define her style, her whole career. Queer women, turmoil, and water.

Before she knew it, she was crying on the floor in a bookstore. Actually crying. Snot ran out of her nose, and she wiped it on her own shoulder, and she wasn’t sure if it was possible for her to be more pathetic.

My heart is crushed within me. Here is the truth: You made me love you- your eyes and mouth and voice. You pulled me into your heart. You don't want me there and I don't want to be there, but it's where I will always live.

She didn’t scream or yell. She never had in all the time Delilah had known her, but Christ, that woman could spit out an invective like no one else, her tone always measured and cold, which, honestly, made everything worse.

When he finally comes out, I edge down a little in the front seat of my car, torn between wanting to disappear and wanting him to see me so he'll know how much I hate him and love him and every blurry shade of gray in between.

It was fascinating to see this bold, brash woman look like a deer wandering in the woods. Claire wasn’t sure what it was all about, but she really wanted to know, which was exactly why she swallowed her questions with a too-big gulp of alcohol.

which just reminded her how desperate she was to be something, someone in this world. Someone who mattered and who people remembered, who people wondered about and sought out, even if they were just strangers chasing the emotions her photographs evoked.

Sam and me- star-crossed and still entangled up on a hill overlooking the city. On top of the world. I almost laugh at how ridiculous it is. How silly it is that we found each other, that we grounded each other, that we gave each other a sense of freedom and a home.

It’s always a risk,” Claire said, “talking to another woman in a bar. Not that I do this all that often.” “A risk?” Claire nodded. “You could be straight as an arrow.” Delilah laughed but gave nothing away. “And you’re not?” “Oh.” And the blush was back. “No, not at all.

She tilts her head and puts her soft hand on my face, letting her fingertips glide down my neck, to my chest. She flattens her palm there, the heat of her hand searing through my shirt. "You're..." She pauses and I take a breath, my heart thumping madly. "I don't know. It sounds stupid, but... you're like home.

Outside, clouds slid across the sky. The morning had started bright and sunny, but Jordan actually liked the clouds, the softness of the gray sky. It felt right, comforting, whereas the sun in Savannah always felt like it was mocking her. Look, I'M happy, why can't YOU get your shit together? Clouds were kinder,

Stevie didn't say anything. Couldn't. She didn't even remember getting down the steps, but suddenly she was standing in front of Iris, breathing the same autumn air, her ginger and citrus scent like a drug, and the only thing Stevie could do was stare at her, starving for her face, her mouth, that blue freckle right under her left eye.

She wanted the Delilah hanging up there on the wall to be the real Delilah. Strong and resilient. Battered by the world and circumstances beyond her control, sure, but instead of resentful and angry, that woman was calm. Peaceful. Serene. Grateful. She belonged somewhere, despite years and years of emotional displacement. She’d found something. She’d been found by someone.

Then, before Astrid could laugh or protest or react at all, Iris grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto the bed. She yanked both Claire and Delilah into her embrace as well, until the four women were wrapped up together on the bed, laughing and crying and swearing, everyone’s hair and makeup ruined good and proper. And no other moment in Astrid’s life had ever felt so perfect.

If a person was questioning all this stuff, that person doesn't have to know all the answers. They don't have to be sure about anything. They don't have to label themselves as anything but as humang being if they don't want to. Does that make sense?" "I... I think so." "That person can just let themselves feel and think about what they need to. It's okay to wonder. To be curious. And it's okay to be sure too. But you--that person--don't have to be, all right?