Julie Buxbaum Quotes & Sayings

I hate the word "bitch." I do. Using the B-word makes me feel like a bad feminist, but sometimes there is no other word. — Julie Buxbaum

I like to think of my people as mute optimists - leave the elephant alone and, eventually, perhaps with the help of a couple mimosas, he will disappear from the room on his own accord. — Julie Buxbaum

There's nothing lonelier than a hand on glass. Maybe because it's so rarely reciprocated. — Julie Buxbaum

I wish I were really young, like you. Eight is, like, the best age."
"Really?"
"I don't know. To be honest, I don't remember being eight."
"That's good."
"Why?"
"I don't want to remember being eight either. — Julie Buxbaum

Because if I'm going to spend at least seventy-five percent of my waking hours doing something, I want that something to have meaning. I am tired of wasting my time. I am starting to realize that I want my life to matter in every way that it can. — Julie Buxbaum

Liam's hands are curled into fists, as if he is ready to throw punches right in the middle of IHOP, which is of course a dumb place to fight. There are children here, and polyester booths, and smiley-face pancakes. Multiple kinds of syrup. Some of the drinks even come with maraschino cherries. — Julie Buxbaum

But sometimes a kiss is not a kiss is not a kiss. Sometimes it's a poetry. — Julie Buxbaum

Here's what I know: I eat mass quantities of red meat, curse religiously, sing out of tune but with conviction. I cry when it suits me, laugh when it's inopportune, read The New York Times obituaries and wedding announcements, out loud and in that order. — Julie Buxbaum

Though everyone I knew seemed to be either settling down or looking to settle down, I was never on a deep-sea fishing expedition to find a boyfriend. And a "great catch," well, that seemed to be begging for heartache. — Julie Buxbaum

I know that love is not finite. — Julie Buxbaum

I mean , I never even had to really come out to my parents. They always knew, and it was always okay. Or not even okay, better than that. Not something that had to be evaluated at all. It just was. Like having brown hair. — Julie Buxbaum

Other people can't make you feel stupid. Only you can. — Julie Buxbaum

you make me want to know what goes on in that head of yours. I'll be honest: I'm not usually interested in the contents of others people's heads. My own is work enough. — Julie Buxbaum

His two front teeth are slightly crooked, veer just a tiny bit to the right, as if they've decided perfection is overrated. His smile is like unlocking a riddle. How does an imperfection make him seem more perfect? — Julie Buxbaum

noir. In those dreams, I stand up after passionate sex with — Julie Buxbaum

Are you asking me if I did something to deserve Gem tripping me and calling me a whore, a slut, and a fat ugly bitch? Seriously? You are asking me that?"

"The answer is no. I have not touched a single guy in this school or actually pretty much ever, not that that would justify a fellow student calling me a whore or a slut. And as for the 'fat ugly bitch'? I presume that's subjective." . . .
"Do you need my BMI? I'm sure that can be arranged. — Julie Buxbaum

He's more like me, I think: burdened with the realization that what goes on his mind is somehow different from what goes on everyone else's. Even those close to us. And how you can't think about that for too long, because that thought- the truth of your own isolation- is too much to bear. — Julie Buxbaum

You kind of have to admire her commitment," Dri says. "Banging for feminism. — Julie Buxbaum

I'm from Chicago. I think can handle the Valley. — Julie Buxbaum

When we get off the plane, the fact that we are far from New York immediately becomes evident. Everything moves slower here; the change of pace feels something like relief. The Southern drawl has a laxative effect on Carl too, magically removing the stick from his ass. — Julie Buxbaum

I convince myself that I am having fun playing big lawyer in the big city-working all hours, surrounded by a ringing phone and day-old pizza crust. That I am reveling in this life of a caricature. But that would be a lie, because the truth is that I don't really feel much of anything at all. Just a dull ache around my edges. — Julie Buxbaum

I haven't yet figured out who I want to be, dear," Ruth says, answering both my questions, and then throws her head back in a hearty, unselfconscious laugh. "I'm not kidding. I haven't figure it out yet. But don't tell my daughters that. I lie to them every day. I tell them they will figure it out, with time. To just keep doing what they are doing. But let me let you in on a little secret, because I think you can handle it.' She leans in to whisper in my ear.

All parents lie to their children. It's our duty. But the truth of the matter is, I don't think many of us know what we are doing. We all walk around much of the time confused and very much alone. — Julie Buxbaum

I think that's what people do with the holidays. They wrap it up all neatly with a turkey and clever gifts and lots of eggnog and laugh and laugh, but at the end of the day there are always people missing from the table. And you have to either sit with those empty chairs and laugh, or you can choose not to come to the table at all. I would rather come to the table. — Julie Buxbaum

Not feeling like I belong anywhere has made me crave constant motion; standing still feels risky, like asking to be a target. — Julie Buxbaum

Perfect days are for people with small, realizable dreams. Or maybe for all of us, they just happen in retrospect; they're only now perfect because they contain something irrevocably and irretrievably lost. — Julie Buxbaum

Would you like some of my cranberry sauce?" I ask.
"I have the same thing, Emily," my dad says. "Why would I want some of yours when I have my own? — Julie Buxbaum

Just because you're strong doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for help sometimes. Remember that. — Julie Buxbaum

One of the worst parts about someone dying is thinking back to all those times you didn't ask the right questions, all those times you stupidly assumed you'd have all the time in the world. And this too: how all that time feels like not much time at all. — Julie Buxbaum

And that's why I finally ended it. I realized today that it's exhausting to be a coward. — Julie Buxbaum

Once I read a study about prisoners with a life sentence. The ones without the possibility of parole were happier than those who might get out. Defies logic, but then, not really. Sometimes it's the hope that kills you. — Julie Buxbaum

In the Venn diagram of my life, my imagined personality and my real personality have never converged. Over email and text, though, I am given those few additional beats I need to be the better, edited version of myself. To — Julie Buxbaum

Not knowing the right thing to do is not an excuse for not doing anything. — Julie Buxbaum

I wish we could keep on forgetting to remember ourselves. — Julie Buxbaum

Last night, we IM'd so late, I fell asleep with my computer on my lap and woke to his words dinging on my screen. Three things, he said: (1) good morning, (2) I have keybord marks on my face. slept on the "sdfg." (3) you leave in 24 hours, and I'm going to miss you. — Julie Buxbaum

When it is our turn to check in, the woman behind the counter smiles brightly at us despite the cruel hour. I attempt to return her enthusiasm, but my lips don't have the energy for it. The effect is something like a snarl. — Julie Buxbaum

You know how it is. Mean girls get mean in seventh grade and they stay that way until your ten-year reunion, when they want to be best friends again. — Julie Buxbaum

Come to think of it, I don't want to be my friend either. — Julie Buxbaum

This is the opposite of love, I realize, when I look over and see my empty couch, see right through my imaginary companions. The opposite of love isn't hate; it isn't even indifference. It's fucking disembowelment. Hara-kiri. Taking a huge shovel and digging out your own heart, and your intestines, and leaving behind nothing. Nothing of yourself to give, nothing, even, to take away. Nothing but a quiet pulse and some mildly entertaining soap operas.

If to love is to hand over self and heart, then this, my friend, this - to self-disembowel - is its opposite.

I wish I knew how to needlepoint so I could stitch it onto a fucking pillow. — Julie Buxbaum

Tears are kind of like urine. There is only so long you can hold them in. — Julie Buxbaum

People like to say that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. There tends to be a whispered reverence around the expression, as if it has magical healing powers. Better to be hated than ignored by that angry ex of yours; better to be hated than ignored, generally.

Otherwise, you may spend your life staring straight down the barrel of the opposite of love.

But I think that's bullshit. Nonsense print copy for a paper towel. A sound bit e to needlepoint on a throw pillow. Could indifference really be worse than hate? How depressing to think we could be spending most of our days surrounded by people who feel something worse than hate toward us. — Julie Buxbaum

Email is much like an ADD diagnosis. Guaranteed extra time on the test. — Julie Buxbaum

All the tattoos I would get if I were the sort of person who had the nerve to get tattoos, which I am decidedly not. Instead, I'm the kind of person who has spent hours debating said theoretical tattoos, despite my crippling fears of both needles and long-term commitment. — Julie Buxbaum

That's the blessing and the curse of loss: You don't get to choose what falls within the inevitable dissolution of recollection or what lingers and haunts you late at night, your head heavy with memories, while your husband dreams of scaling walls in spandex tights.This is who I am: someone who simultaneously longs for and fears the commitment of remembering. There is the forgetting, the disintegration of memory, morsel by morsel; and there is the impossibility of forgetting, the scar tissue, with is insulated layers of padding. Both haunt me in their own way. — Julie Buxbaum

Time does not heal all wounds, no matter how many drugstore sympathy cards hastily scrawled by distant relatives promise this to be true. — Julie Buxbaum

SN: you know what I think about sometimes?

Me: What?

SN: you know that piece of hair that always falls into your eyes - the not-quite-a-bang piece? I want to be able to tuck it behind your ear. I want to be able to do that. I want to meet you when I feel comfortable enough with you to do that.

Me: You are so weird.

SN: you are not the first person to say that.

Me: Am I the first to say that I really like that about you? — Julie Buxbaum

My mom once told me that the world is divided into two kinds of people: the ones who love their high school years and the ones who spend the next decade recovering from them. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, she said.
But something did kill her, and I'm not stronger. So go figure; maybe there's a third kind of person: the ones who never recover from high school at all. — Julie Buxbaum

Tears are kind of like urine. There's only so long you can hold them in. — Julie Buxbaum

I think of his hands fixing me a plate, almost touching my banged-up face, and all I can think about is how much I want to kiss them: his eyes, his hands too.
All of him.
His damaged parts.
All of him. — Julie Buxbaum

The image sears my brain too, and I wonder if I will ever be able to forget it. Although I realize that I am in trouble here, there is still a part of me that wants to giggle. The situation has moved so out of control, I half-expect him to pull out a pair of furry handcuffs. — Julie Buxbaum

I don't even want to spend the rest of my life with me.. how do you explain to someone you love that you can't give yourself to them because if you did, you're not sure who you'd be giving? That you aren't sure what your own words are worth? You can't tell someone that, especially someone you love. And so you don't.

Instead, I do the right thing. I lie. — Julie Buxbaum

Tonight , I leave the bathroom light on and double-check the lock on the front door. I rest in the middle of the bed again and make a few more snow angels. It is a fruitless exercise though, because when I am done moving my arms upward and downward, I end up in exactly the same place I started. — Julie Buxbaum

Ruth smiles, which rearranges the lines on her face. She inverts her parentheses and transforms commas into apostrophes. The pattern is that of a woman who has no regrets. — Julie Buxbaum

I take the long way home and circle the neighborhood. The leaves have started to fall and collect in small heaps under the carefully spaced trees. I kick the piles, enjoying the sounds my feet make as I scatter them along the sidewalk, adding a small bit of extra chaos to the city. Every once and a while, I sniff the sleeves of my sweater. I kind of like that they stink of patchouli. — Julie Buxbaum

Wake up. This is your life, for God sakes. It's time to face up to it. You can't get anywhere, can't get over anything, if you don't let yourself feel anything in the first place. It's time. — Julie Buxbaum

Five years ago, I said vows. And I believe in vows. I meant them, and not just when I said them out loud for an audience to hear but as a motto and a life choice. For as long as we both shall live. I hadn't anticipated the sandy flow of feeling, the yin-yang of love and dread, or the residual buildup of grievances and the slow draining of the benefit of doubt. In good times and in bad. Yes, sure, but in my naivete, I interpreted this as external; we would support each other when the world imposed and intruded. No one tells you that it's the internal that's the real challenge: those moments of decisiveness equal to taking a vow, when you feel the clawing grip of your pormises. — Julie Buxbaum