Nina Lacour Quotes

The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.

I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.

My room is so quiet and empty it hurts.

There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can't.

You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.

There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.

And I want to tell you about everything but I can't because I couldn't stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me and think that I'm normal. I just really need that from you.

I was okay just a moment ago. I will learn how to be okay again.

It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.

We were nostalgic for a time that wasn't yet over.

dear today, i spend all of you pretending i'm okay when i'm not, pretending i'm happy when i'm not, pretending about everything to everyone.

This is what I want so don't be sad.

I wish you more happiness than can fit in a person.

I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

...I think that people who make judgements about other people they don't even know are shallow, and people who start rumors are shallow, and I really don't care what shallow people say about me.

How does your life move forward, when all you want to do is hold still.

The trouble with denial is that when the truth comes, you aren't ready.

Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me.

My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling.

Sometimes inspiration strikes; other times you have to hunt it down.

I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet.

How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust.

I thought that it was more likely the opposite. I must have shut grief out. Found it in books. Cried over fiction instead of the truth. The truth was unconfined, unadorned. There was no poetic language to it, no yellow butterflies, no epic floods. There wasn't a town trapped underwater or generations of men with the same name destined to make the same mistakes. The truth was vast enough to drown in.

What I mean is don't be a person who seeks out grief. There is enough of that in life.

It’s a dark place, not knowing. It’s difficult to surrender to. But I guess it’s where we live most of the time. I guess it’s where we all live, so maybe it doesn’t have to be so lonely. Maybe I can settle into it, cozy up to it, make a home inside uncertainty.

That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't.

And I think of how time passes so differently for different people.

He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much.

I could say the night felt magical, but that would be embellishment. That would be romanticization. What it actually felt like was life.

I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed her.

I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that's the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.

I wonder if there's a secret current that connects people who have lost something. Not in the way that everyone loses something, but in the way that undoes your life, undoes your self, so that when you look at your face it isn't yours anymore.

Because in the conversation beneath this one, what we're really saying is I am an imperfect person. Here are my failures. Do you want me anyway?

We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken.

The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they aren't larger than life. They are life.

We were miraculous. We were beach creatures. We had treasures in our pockets and each other on our skin.

I hate that word. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic

If only I had something to take the edge off the loneliness. If only lonely were a more accurate word. It should sound much less pretty.

I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I’ve been punched in both eyes. I can’t talk about the day that follows that.

Maybe there is no right thing to say. Maybe the right thing is just a myth, not really out there at all.

The sun stopped shining for me is all.

I don't know if I still love her in the way I used to, but I still find her just as beautiful.

We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could ever fit inside us.

She peels an orange, separates it in perfect halves, and gives one of them to me. If I could wear it like a friendship bracelet, I would. Instead I swallow it section by section and tell myself it means even more this way. To chew and to swallow in silence here with her. To taste the same thing in the same moment.

There is an indescribable feeling that comes from being desperately in love with a song.

It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.

Crushes are supposed to be fun, aren't they? They definitely aren't supposed to be so torturous.

I learn that I am a tiny piece of a miraculous world.

Music is a powerful way for people to express themselves

I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them.

I don't want to hurt you or anybody s just please forget about e. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.I never laughed as hard as I laughed with you but now not even the laughing feels good.

I wish her more happiness than can fit in a person. I wish her the kind of happiness that spills over.

When you love someone, you are sure. You don’t need time to decide. You don’t say stop and start over and over, like you’re playing some kind of sport. You know the immensity of what you have and you protect it.

I know that I am always alone, even when surrounded by people, so I let the emptiness in.

This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes.

I wonder if we will become okay again. I hope for it.

But sometimes two people have a deep connection. It makes romance seem trivial. It isn’t about anything carnal. It’s about souls. About the deepest part of who you are as a person.

Searching, always. And yes, we all are, or soon will be, disenchanted, I still want to know it all: the heartbreak, the fear, the friendship, the anger, the love. All of it.

I sort through the letters and pull out what I need for the beginning. They snap easily into place. And even though I thought I would need every letter, I finish the first sentence and realize that it’s all I have left to say. I MISS YOU.

Maybe we always were the people we imagined ourselves to be.

I listened to the same heartbroken song the entire bus ride home, because it was still a summer when sadness was beautiful.

Here's how I feel: People take one another for granted. Like, I'd just hang out with Ingrid in all these random places--in her room or at school or just on a sidewalk somewhere. And the whole time we'd tell eachother things, just say our thoughts outloud. Maybe that would have been boring to some people, but it was never boring to us. I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment of your life, and think, "Soon this will be over." But I understand more now. About how life works.

I used to cry over a story and then close the book, and it all would be over. Now everything resonates, sticks like a splinter, festers.

I could keep going forever, listing all my flaws in order from the most innocuous to the least. I am afraid of spiders... I fall in love too easily... I have fierce spells of self-doubt.

She leans over our table and turns the sign in the window so that it says CLOSED on the outside. But on our side, perfectly positioned between Mabel’s place and mine, it says OPEN. If this were a short story, it would mean something.

What's the use in waiting until the right moment if that moment never comes?" I say. "What if the moment escapes you in a split second when your focus was elsewhere?

If things happen for a reason, I was meant to get fucked over.

my life is just waiting for you to get started.

They weren't cheap and I was almost broke. It was a choice between dinner and flowers and I chose flowers because it was a dark time in my life and my room was hideous and my heart was broken and I needed something beautiful.

I leaned over the sink, closer to my reflection, and stare at myself hard. I don't know what I see. I don't even know what I want to see.

When the bell rings, and lunch is over, I decide to come back here tomorrow, and the next day. I tell myself it really isn’t that bad.

How does your life move forward when all you want to do is. . . hold still.

There are many ways of being alone. That’s something I know to be true. I breathe in (stars and sky). I breathe out (snow and trees). There

Dignity is overrated. You know what trumps dignity? Kissing.

I'll be better, so I won't want it to hurt anymore.

She was never something waiting to be solved. All she is - all she's ever been - is a person trying to live a life.

whatever I decide, I might be making a mistake. But if I'm going to make a mistake I want it to be passionate

... even if I couldn't get into the dark places in her head, I would at least be there waiting on the outside.

I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment in your life, and think, "Soon this will be over". But I understand more now. About the way life works.

We all want to be feel something, we want to be someone to one another.

He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, 'O, teach me how I should forget to think!' I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare.

There’s still this thing that happens after you break up with someone. It barely takes any time to work. All you have to do is continue with your life, and then when you find yourself in a room with her again it’s as if you’re a different person. Maybe your posture is a little more confident. Maybe your laughter is louder. You’re wearing perfume she’s never smelled before and you have a new way of pinning back your hair. You don’t even have to say anything because your presence alone is enough to say Look at who I am without you.

In just a little while we will forget all the things we used to want and adjust to the lives that we're given.

Her suicide shook me deeply. It changed so much about how I view myself, the work I do with all of you.

I know," I say. "It sucks. Let's go get tacos and sit on the beach.

How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head.

There are no scenes in life, there are only minutes.

I kept wondering then — I'm still wondering now — if there was a time when she realizes that something was going wrong. Inside her, I mean. when she could feel herself slipping away, something new creeping in. If she could have stopped it, or if it just... happened.

Tragedy," she says. "Heartbreak." She stops and then she makes sure that I'm looking at her. "Betrayal." Her eyes bore into mine... "These are all things that change a person. If we endure them and we aren't changed, then something is wrong.

It's a dark place, not knowing. It's difficult to surrender to. But I guess it's where we live most of the time. I guess it's where we all live, so maybe it doesn't have to be so lonely. Maybe I can settle into it, cozy up to it, make a home inside uncertainty.

They say that's what happens when you fall in love. You want to tell people things. You especially want to tell them sad things. Hidden sad things from the past. Something like: I was abandoned at a sweetshop in an unspecified European country.

I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered.

We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Remember about death and suffering and the complexities of living. Remember what it is like to love someone. Remember how it is to be loved. Remember what you feel in this moment. Remember this. Remember this.

Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak - I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak - the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt. Tall tree with bare branches - the way I would leave when she got depressed and stopped talking. I should have stayed. I should have just sat quietly , so she knew I was with her.

And then she is kissing me, right here on the sidewalk on a foggy summer night. Violet is kissing me, and everything is perfect. The kiss doesn't end. We are not two girls on a polite first date, bestowing a customary good-night peck. No. We are kissing like girls who have ached for each other for years who never even spoke but somehow exchanged I love yous anyway.

The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell. I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her. Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.

Ingrid's skin was the smoothest texture, so pale that it was transparent. I could see the blue veins that ran down her arms, and they made her seem fragile somehow. the way Eric Daniels, my first boyfriend, seemed fragile when I laid my head on his chest and heart his heart beating and thought, Oh. People don't always remember about the blood and the heartbeat. But whenever I looked at Ingrid, I was reminded of the things that kept her alive.

I can't muster a smile. Even with the knowledge that it's dark outside and light up here, it's hard to believe that he can see us. We should be invisible. We are so alone. Mabel and I are standing side by side, but we can't even see each other. In the distance are the lights of town. People must be finishing their workdays, picking up their kids, figuring out dinner. They're talking to one another in easy voices about things of great significance and things that don't mean much. The distance between us and all of that living feels insurmountable.

You go through life thinking there's so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don't want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow - it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The dream catcher hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars... You think you need all of it. Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

I need to leave something behind. Something that will stay. This room should be a historical landmark, the site of the beginning and end of Colby and Bev. Several minutes have passed, and I know that if I wait too long there will be a knock on the door and I'll have to go, but I need to leave a mark. It has to be significant enough to last, but subtle enough that the maid won't notice and wash it away. As I'm looking around I realize that I never noticed the print above the bed. It's another in the family series - a faded wedding portrait. Groom in tux. Bride with pearls. It comes off the wall easily.I set the print on the bedspread and wit eht dust on the wall with the sleeve of my hood. I take out a Sharpie from my bag. The wall has yellowed to create a perfect rectangle where the photograph must have been hanging, unremoved, for years. I fill the whiter space with this: I never got to tell you how beautiful you are. And then I return the frame to its place on the wall and go back out into the night.