Ainslie Hogarth Quotes & Sayings

Hell is a library," she said, tightening her fresh knot.

"That really doesn't sound bad, Julia."

"That's because I'm not finished. Hell is a library of books containing every word you've ever said, and videotapes of everything you've ever done."

"So what. Do you have to watch them?"

"No, you don't have to. But would you be able to help yourself? It would be unbearable. I couldn't resist, but I would hate myself after." She gave the noose two good, hard tugs. "Plus, even if you could resist the temptation, you'd eventually get so bored that you'd do anything. And the only thing to read is stuff that you've said and the only thing to do is watch yourself. — Ainslie Hogarth

when I stare at myself for a really long time, I stop looking human. The way that a word starts to seem unreal as you repeat it, my face unravels. — Ainslie Hogarth

Maybe these whole woods are haunted with crushed girl ghosts and that's what I'm hearing. They're coming to check me out, make sure I'm cool. Which I'm not, so they'll be disappointed. — Ainslie Hogarth

Because I'm evil, that's why. I'm an evil monster, two at once all the time and both evil. That's why. — Ainslie Hogarth

Time had her by the throat, and the more she squirmed the tighter it gripped. — Ainslie Hogarth

And she nodded and she nodded and she nodded until she was sobbing and she wasn't sure when the nodding turned into sobbing but it had and she'd buried her face into The Mother's neck and The Mother rubbed her back, her palm up and down and up and down. — Ainslie Hogarth

From day one I was an inconvenience. But apparently I was a very cute baby so that helped my case a bit. — Ainslie Hogarth

The problem is, you can't fake dead hands. That invisible something that fills dead or sleeping hands, making them appear strange and inanimate, is impossible to imitate. — Ainslie Hogarth

I wish that I really were all troubled and beautiful the way that some people are. Give myself the kind of beginning worthy of the Biography Channel. — Ainslie Hogarth

I excel at withholding. Resisting. Denying satisfaction. — Ainslie Hogarth

That's what fresh babies look like. You should see it. Horrific. Your vagina rips in two and this purpled, wrinkled creature comes flying out. And you're stuck with it. — Ainslie Hogarth

I'm the reasons that partners have to be assigned in school instead of chosen, or why teachers have to pick the teams in gym class instead of letting kids separate on their own. — Ainslie Hogarth

No wonder serial killers liked to chop up women," Julia said. "They seem so much better when they're just bits and pieces. — Ainslie Hogarth

Normal and together, an impossible combination for us in the regular, real world. — Ainslie Hogarth

Real teacups are too small. No room for sloshing around so they're impossible to carry anywhere. Those cups force you to sit and be seated and do nothing but sip. Maybe that's why ladies in Victorian movies are never DOING anything. Bound to the table by their teacups. Bound to the table by THE THREAT OF MESS. — Ainslie Hogarth

Sometimes I feel like I'm disappearing. — Ainslie Hogarth

I didn't want to explode on you like that right away. I was really planning on giving you the cold shoulder until you cried. That would have been so much better. — Ainslie Hogarth

You don't want to be pitied."

"Why not?"

"I don't really know, but I know that you don't want it. No one ever wants anyone else's pity. In the movies anyway. — Ainslie Hogarth

but maybe, also, she doesn't know how to talk to us because she's so weird. — Ainslie Hogarth

parents are just as responsible for your death as they are for your birth. They set you on the tangent along which you inevitably die. — Ainslie Hogarth

And actually I wouldn't want to suck the glaze off his eyes. I should leave it. Because it might be the glaze over his eyes that makes him think I'm so wonderful. — Ainslie Hogarth

You're nothing but an intruder. A germ. A piece of sand agitating my oyster. But you're not a pearl; you're a tumor or a wart or a cyst. — Ainslie Hogarth

Real smoker's fingers aren't scared of the burning embers; their fingers coexist with it. — Ainslie Hogarth

The volcanic bubbling of everything in one pan made it very difficult to hear a crying child on the doorstep. — Ainslie Hogarth

Her body, the nucleic force of the furious scribble, was absolutely out of control: slipping and falling and flaking off, gaining much, losing little. — Ainslie Hogarth

Just to warn you, I die at the end of all of this. So don't get too attached to me or anything. — Ainslie Hogarth

Eyeglasses and teeth: both breakable, valuable things that you have to carry with you all the time. Hanging there precariously like earrings without backings, threatening to fall out, chip off, crack to the quick because of some innocent nut or seed or beer bottle. — Ainslie Hogarth

hands were always the worst giveaway in a pretend sleep attempt, sleeping hands being impossible to fake. — Ainslie Hogarth

The bathroom was the place to do strange, socially unacceptable things. — Ainslie Hogarth

But honestly, I don't really want to get to know most people anyway. Most people are boring assholes. Secretly I am better than everyone. — Ainslie Hogarth

I think you're strange, and what you did was a strange thing to do. — Ainslie Hogarth

Once you've spit something out, you can't eat it back up again. People don't forget. — Ainslie Hogarth

Goddammit. I hate when crying just happens to you Like when you're being yelled at by someone or you're very nervous, there's a hostile takeover of your face and chest and all of a sudden you're a crying baby. — Ainslie Hogarth

Lipstick was an easy answer to boredom. It was the most exciting thing you could do in the shortest amount of time because for a second, you got to convince yourself that you were the kind of gal who wears lipstick every day. You got to pout to yourself, and trick yourself that you were glamorous. Then in a second it was over, time to wipe it off and start again. — Ainslie Hogarth

Quivering eyelids closed over wild eyeballs. Paddleball heartbeat, awake beneath the costume of sleep. — Ainslie Hogarth

Hers was the only face I could see right now, the only voice I could bear to hear. — Ainslie Hogarth

It's odd the way that things tend to stop looking like themselves when you take their motion away. — Ainslie Hogarth

She could sense a mistake even before it happened, or perhaps she caused them with her accusatory eyes. — Ainslie Hogarth

Soda pop and cotton candy and every face you've never noticed. — Ainslie Hogarth

an attempt at effortlessness is a paradox at the very least. — Ainslie Hogarth

She wanted to be as still as they, wanted to be drawn into the dirt and reborn a million times, at the same time, like each little blade of smooth grass. — Ainslie Hogarth

She wanted to find a loose thread in the twilight. Pull it. See what shined so brightly behind it, through the snags. — Ainslie Hogarth