Holly Bourne Quotes

Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. "Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I'm so OCD." NO YOU'RE FUCKING NOT. "Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack." NO YOU FUCKING DIDN'T. "I'm so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar." SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.

Everyone's on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there's no 'normal' way of dealing with it... There is no normal, Evelyn.

Being interesting isn't important. But being happy is. As well as being a person you're proud of

Love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too. And you may not be able to help your feelings, but you are responsible for the choices you make about what to do with them.

Bad stuff happens, people are mean, there are no steps you can take that ensure the world leaves you alone. All you can do is try not to be one of those people who contributes to the bad.

The only love affair I needed to invest in right now was one with myself. Spend some time with me. Figuring out myself and why I picked the relationships I did. I was holding out my heart to me. Because I'd realised I was the only person who could give me a happily-ever-after.

Being a woman, in this world, ultimately makes you crazy.

Crying is a very obvious sign that something isn’t going right in your life. You should not ignore tears.

Failure is never getting hurt. Because that means you've not done anything you cared about.

Happy endings are reserved strictly for the fiction shelves of bookstores

Be someone you would want to read about.

Life doesn't happen to you. You can't just sit on a park bench and expect amazing things to whizz by on a conveyor belt. Life is what you put into it.

All I'm saying is, love changes over time. No person is ever perfect for another person

Choose life. Choose love. And always remember to live.

No one ever tells you how much a heartbreak physically hurts. How it literally feels like you've been kicked down the stairs. How you can't swallow. How every muscle aches. How your heart lurches inside you like it's been poisoned. Nobody tells you that.

Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole.They make you selfish. They make you irrational. They make you irrational. They make you self-absorbed. They make you needy. They make you cancel plans last minute. They make you not very fun to spend time with. They make you exhausting to be near.

Be you. It's all you can ever be anyway. But own being you. It's a fab thing to own.

What was the point? What is the point in love, and promises of it, when it can just jump from one person to another like that?

Do you ever wonder,” he asked, “how we decide what’s mad and what isn’t? There’s so much crazy stuff in the world – everything’s a mess most of the time – but then people who can’t handle it are called mental and have films made about them… But what if they’re just reacting to the weirdness of the universe? Isn’t it more weird to just think everything’s okay, when it clearly isn’t?

Do you ever worry you’re being a teenager wrong?” I thought of the last three years. “I KNOW I’m being one wrong.” “I mean, what’s wrong with finding songs glorifying domestic violence offensive? What’s wrong with finding live music too loud? What’s wrong with a nice cup of tea and a chat?

I smiled back at Ma because smiling is sometimes the only way to stop yourself crying.

Trauma is trauma. Your brain and body don't differentiate between physical and emotional abuse. They only respond to attack.

Maybe all you needed in life was the belief you could change things. Somehow. Some way.

It’s such a simple torture – the silent treatment. As basic as tripping someone over or pulling their chair out before they sit down. And yet it’s so very effective. When someone has the willpower to pretend you’re not there, it nullifies you. How do you fight against that humiliation?

The true test of life isn't how you cope when everything is going in your favour; it's how you deal with things that could destroy you, if you let them.

Love, as always, is what it comes down to. You have to love. It's the only way. Love for life. Love for others. And, most importantly, love for yourself.

Because trying to use logic to explain anxiety is like using a banana to open a locked safe.

Abuse is also when your personality is attacked, not just your body. Abuse is feeling like you constantly have to walk on eggshells around the person you're supposed to love. Abuse is being cut off from your friends, even if you could never prove it was their idea you did it. Abuse is being made to feel you're going crazy. Abuse is being lured in with grand promises and wild declarations of love that can never be sustained. Abuse is being pushed into doing sexual things you're not comfortable with. That is also called rape, another word that has taken me some time to feel belongs to me. Abuse is intentionally humiliating you. Abuse is constantly blaming you for everything, and never them.

I'm terrified that my journey won't tie up all the loose ends nicely. Because this is a life, not just a story, and life doesn't always go the way stories tell you.

Time can be strange sometimes. It can leave imprints in particular places, leaving ghosts of memories trapped.

He's been so changeable with her I'm surprised he's not been accepted to Hogwarts for his transfiguration skills.

If we expect all men to have six-packs and biceps, we can't get mad when they expect us to be stick-figures with DD boobs.

When you fight for what you believe in, you come across a lot of obstacles. People who don't agree with you, people who agree with you but only some bits, people who delight in ripping you down, people who are threatened by the strength of your belief. But I was beginning to realise, the biggest hurdle to overcome was the hurdle of yourself.

What is love? Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's not what we've been told it its. Maybe it's boring words like security and safety, warmth and growth. Maybe it's the comfort of knowing someone really well and them knowing you back. Maybe it's kisses where you sometimes bump noses but you can laugh it off? Maybe it's never getting butterflies because you always know where you stand?

(...) is the more you're trying to prove to people you're happy, the less happy you actually feel.

Who cares what a writer looks like as long as their words are beautiful?

Everyone's always scared for someone else's generation

But I was choosing to walk away from that. Because my heart... my heart was too fragile for someone who had chosen to break it.

Sometimes that's all you can do in life, when it comes to pain - try and understand it. We all carry scars and scorch marks around with us. We cuddle up each night with ghosts of damaging memories - we let them swirl around our heads, never able to settle or heal because we can't make sense of this terrible thing that happened to us, and why we're finding it so impossible to get over. You can't force pain to leave until it's ready to.

Of course, you're always a cynic before you fall in love yourself...

It takes guts to listen to our gut...

She has her own brand of strength,brought to the surface by the dim glow of the streetlight and the whisper of night air on her skin.

It was immediately obvious that Harry had hints of fuckboy about him.

If you’re not scared, then it’s not courage.

What people don't understand about feeling such potent sadness is, when it lifts, it really lets you know what happiness means.

(...) love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too. And you may no be able to help your feelings, but you are responsible for the choices you make about what to do with them.

Why love is never like the movies

I love the men who don’t need sisters and daughters and wives to make us human and not want us hurt.

Why would anyone get drunk? Why does anyone need anything like that to escape the world, when the world is its own antidote?

I want you to promise me that you'll stop comparing yourself to everyone else.' 'What?' I broke off the hug, not understanding. 'You. Evelyn. You're always like, 'I wish I coulld be like this' or 'I wish I could be more like so-and-so'. You're obsessed with being normal, but that's well boring, and you're extraordinary, Evie. Promise me you'll stop trying to stop stop being you'.

I want to change things on my own terms, to show that there's no right or wrong way to change the world. There's no entry test. You don't need to suck anything up. Pay any dues. Just you and your anger and your voice is enough. If you only have the courage to use it.

Trauma. It doesn't eke itself out over time. It doesn't split itself manageably into bite-sized chunks and distribute itself equally throughout your life. Trauma is all or nothing. A tsunami wave of destruction. A tornado of unimaginable awfulness that whooshes into your life - just for one key moment - and wreaks such havoc that, in just an instant, your whole world will never be the same again.

Ha, that’s the problem. You have to exert brain control in order to do it, and isn’t a lack of control over your brain why you’re in therapy in the first place?

Celia Bourne, you are NOT the murderer.

and I learned a lesson about not judging people until you’ve found out whether or not they’ve read Harry Potter. Kyle

It was all very well being a strong independent woman, but it was hard when boys’ confusing behaviour kept making you lose your focus.

Life's just a complicated mess with absolutely no purpose.

Because there’s nothing more comforting than someone who actually gets it. Really gets it. Because they’ve been to the same hell as you have and can verify you’ve not made it up.

Life is so ridiculously clichéd sometimes I wonder why we bother living it when nothing is ever a surprise any more.

Reality doesn't wait for you to be ready for it. It doesn't go away when you tell it to. It's like a persistent mosquito, determined to suck your blood and leave you with a bumpy itch that you can't stop scratching.

It would've been the perfect time to tell her. To tell anyone. To say, 'I'm drowning and I need someone, anyone, to be my life raft.' To say, 'I thought it had gone, and it hasn't and I'm so scared by what that means.' To say, 'I just want to be normal, why won't my head let me be normal?

That's how you give away your power, by caring what other people think. As long as nobody thought I was a nasty person, I didn't worry about the rest. I mean, why bother? You couldn't control it anyway.

She wouldn’t have understood. Or worse, she would’ve pretended to understand, but then got annoyed when her support didn’t magically cure me.

We need to kill with kindness. Cure with compassion.

Life is so bloody hard. I don't want the whole struggle to be pointless. If I'm going to get crap thrown at me from great heights my whole life, well, I want to damn well make sure I leave a mark on this world in exchange for all the misery.

You don't have to stop looking after yourself just to help the world. In fact, sometimes it's better for the world if you put yourself first. That's not being selfish, in fact looking after yourself is the greatest act of kindness you can give the world. Loving yourself first is the best way to spread love.

Being interesting isn't important. But being happy is. As well as being a person you're proud of.

Did all the horrid little moments where girls got treated like crap somehow create a society where the horrid big moments could happen

People always believe they're nice in their own heads, that's what makes it so scary when you look at the state of the world.

But it takes strength to reject all the things the world tells you to be.

Because the week the cinema closed? Well. That was the week we broke up. Ahh, come on. You knew this was coming.

Remind yourself it’s better to be lonely than hurt. It’s better to be alone than in a room full of people who can turn on you.

You never know if happy memories are going to become sad ones. They glow and shine in the vast realms of our subconscious, making that part of our brain feel like it’s filled with glitter. We pick them up and cradle them like expensive cats, or wriggle into them like they are jumpers we’ve left to warm on a radiator. Until the day when, for one reason or another, life can suddenly make this happy memory into a sad memory instead. Good memories exist in the naivety of not knowing any better.

Maybe there in a set amount of crying your body needs to deal with any trauma. There’s a certain water-level of tears you need to shed until you can find acceptance or move on or whatever. And, if you don’t cry them out, they just catch up with you.

Common dates in romance movies: Seats in a box at the opera or ballet Walking around a beautiful foreign city Night-time picnics in empty parks Finding some gorgeous abandoned house that the boy fills with candles Common dates in real life: Nando's...

I think real kindness, real compassion, is having the strength to stop and try and see where another person is coming from. To try and work out why they're being the way they're being. It takes time and patience. It's not easy, but that's real kindness.

Is any broken heart ever worth it?

So you gotta fight for your right to be ruddy miserable

It's not fair to set people tests and then get annoyed when they fail them.

This is life, Lottie. There's no such thing as a happy ending. Because there's no such thing as an ending. More days keep coming, some good, some bad. You can't just stay limboed in a moment of happiness. That's not realistic.

Maybe people like you and me are just prime numbers. We don't neatly divide into a world that demands order. And they keep trying to find out why, and what makes us the way we are, but they can't.

I'd seen too much pain from love. I couldn't be with someone who had stung me sharply so early on. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't.... romantic enough to work through it. Because what I'd learned was love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too.

I will always try to live.

Nobody tells you that large houses have this horrible habit of making you feel utterly alone.

Smiling is sometimes the only way to stop yourself from crying.

Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. “Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.” NO YOU’RE FUCKING NOT. “Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.” NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T.

Are you the conker whisperer or something?” He grinned and dropped his spare one to the ground. “I am the whisperer of many things.” “Yeah. Bullshit. You’re the whisperer of bullshit.

I've never seen anyone get so excited by breakfast before." "Are you serious? It's the most important meal of the day. Sometimes, at bedtime, I plan what I'm going to make for breakfast and then get so excited I can't sleep.

You know that bit in the first Lord of the Rings film? Where Gandalf stands up to that fire demon on the bridge and yells, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS’? Well…” I paused, feeling so ashamed. “Essentially my vagina had a Gandalf standing at the entrance, and he thought Milo’s dick was a fire demon.

It was like I'd climbed Everest, had the summit in my sight, the flag in my hand, all ready to pierce it into the top of the mountain and say, "Whoopdedoo, I made it," and then an avalanche from out of nowhere swept me right back to the bottom of the mountain again. Was it worth bothering to try and climb it again? I was exhausted. I'd already climbed it. I didn't want to...but, then, what other choice was there?

You can build a relationship for so many years. You can grow it and nurture it, give it foundations and walls, and tinker with how you want it decorated. Then in just one moment, you can blow at it gently by telling the truth and the relationship collapses like a teetering house of cards. Years of careful craftsmanship. One conversation to undo it all.

Well, look at the other characters in Winnie the Pooh. They all actually demonstrate that Pooh is the most mentally balanced. There’s Tigger, I mean, that tiger just can’t stay in the moment and enjoy it. He’s too much of a hedonist; he always wants the next adventure. That’s not healthy, he’ll burn out.” I started properly laughing. “And what about Eeyore?” “Well he’s a depressive, isn’t he? If Eeyore walked into my doctor’s office he’d be prescribed with a lifetime supply of antidepressants. And not just because US doctors dole them out like candy canes at Christmas.” The music stopped and I found myself clapping without even looking. “But Pooh?” “Pooh lives in the moment. He doesn’t fret about the past, or freak about the future. He’s an expert at mindfulness.” Kyle

It's hard enough, feeling the clock ticking and yet life not obliging to give you the things others have. To feel defunct and left behind and scared as hell about it -- and the more nervous you get about it, the more you give off some smell that makes it less likely to happen.

He smiled without his teeth. Small, shyly. I found myself smiling back. Like an impulse Then he ruined it by saying… "You're not like other girls, are you?" And I activated. Every single emotion I'd been squashing into my guts exploded like a burst appendix. I jumped off the bed and turned to him with a scowl I was sure he'd need permanent therapy to recover from. "Are you kidding me Harry?" "Woah Audrey. Hey, hey, hey. It's a compliment." I felt like screaming. "It's NOT a compliment. I threw my arms up, any motion to get rid of the rage pulsing through me. It's an insult to every single woman on this PLANET. Don't you DARE try and pull that shit on me. "What shit?!" Harry was stupid enough to ask. "I was saying something nice…" I shook my head so hard. "No, you were saying something clichéd and UNTRUE. I AM like other girls, Harry. Don't misinterpret my hatred of romance as some kooky, laid-back, manic pixie NONSENSE. I am DAMAGED. I am not CUTE. I am emotionally-fucking-traumatised right now, okay? I am screaming on the inside. I am too angry and messed up to contain all the stuff girls spend every day containing. That's why I seem different. That is NOT sexy.

There's a certain type - who use their diagnosis like a human shield. They think it's a reason to find offence in anything. Accuse everyone of triggering them. Act like the world should wrap them up in cotton wool and lie coats over puddles for them just because they're on antidepressants or whatever.

I wonder how many times in a given second girls are told that their guts are wrong? Told our tummies are misfiring, like wayward fireworks. No, no, no, dear, it’s not like that at all. Where did you get that from? I promise you that’s not the case. You are overreacting. You are crazy. You are insecure. You are being a silly little thing. And, then, days or weeks or even years later, we look back on The Bad Thing that happened to us because we ignored all the signs, and we say to ourselves I wish I had listened to my gut.

Writing's much more romantic when its pen and ink and paper. It's... More timeless. and worthwhile. Think about it. There are so many words gushing out into the universe these days. All digitally. All in Comic Sans or Times New Roman. Silly Websites. Stupid news stories digitally uploaded to a 24-hour channel. Where's all this writing going? Who's keeping a note of it all? Who's in charge of deciding what's worthwhile and what isn't? But back then... Back then, if someone wanted to write something they had to buy paper. Buy it! And ink. And a pen. And they couldn't waste too many sheets cos it was expensive. So when people wrote, they wrote because it was worthwhile... not just because they had some half-baked idea and they wanted to pointlessly prove their existence by sharing it on some bloody social networking site.

So what’s the answer, Evie? What do we do?” I pulled a face and scratched my head. “Er…yeah…I’m not so sure. Maybe riot on the streets, raise a revolution and overthrow the entire system?” “Careful now,” Amber replied, spraying more neon pink icing crumbs onto the floor. “Talk like that gets people thrown into psychiatric institutions.

Somehow the gusts of wind we rode on in our twenties have landed us somewhere and we have to make this somewhere work. Because you can’t turn back the clock. It’s too late now to figure out whether you’re on the right gust or not. And you don’t want people to know you’re so stuck, and so scared and think it’s too late to get yourself out of this situation. You don’t want to fail when everyone else is supposedly thriving. And, you are happy, right? Sometimes you’re happy, anyway. And isn’t that what happiness is? Fleeting moments, rather than a permanent state of euphoria. And as long as it looks OK on the outside who cares, right?

There are so many memories, lurking in all the spaces of everywhere. They lie trapped like frozen ghosts, existing only when someone who knows of that memory thinks about that particular time and place and their mind reactivates it. We walk through these ghosts all the time, not knowing we tread the footprints of another person’s story. Just one bench on top of a viewpoint could be harbouring so many stories. It could be the bench where a couple broke up, or where another couple had their first kiss. It could be the bench where someone thought about taking their own life, or where they got the phone call that something amazing had happened. Layered in just one bench there’s an infinite amount of memories. Multiple people living near one particular bench could all share it as special without even knowing each other. We leave behind echoes of our lives everywhere we go, trapping them into the fabric of the world around us.