Leila Sales Quotes & Sayings

Look, the light turns yellow before it turns red, so if you see a yellow light, you might want to consider slowing the hell down. — Leila Sales

What can I say, I have a thing for guys in period dress, okay? That's just who I am. — Leila Sales

Some people will tell you that honesty is the best policy, but I disagree. In instances like this, I fully believe that feigned ignorance is the best policy. — Leila Sales

Honestly, Elise, sometimes it's like you don't even go to this school.' 'Well, that is the goal,' I said. — Leila Sales

Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don't know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isn't you. That isn't you at all. — Leila Sales

But I also felt like an eggshell that had gotten a tiny crack. You can't repair something like that. All you can do is hope that it sticks together, hope that the crack doesn't grow until all your insides come spilling right out. — Leila Sales

I feel sometimes like ... there are all these rules. Just to be a person — Leila Sales

I am already socially disabled; I don't need to be mentally disabled on top of that. — Leila Sales

In Bio last year, I learned that blood is actually a dark maroon when it's inside your body. It's the exposure to oxygen that turns it bright red. And there must have been a lot of oxygen in my bathroom, because that blood was bright, bright red. — Leila Sales

Sacrificing everything that you care about in order to make another person happy is not love. It's not really that some people are gardeners and some people are flowers, Arden. It's that we both must be both, each in our own time. — Leila Sales

Like all stories, the one you are about to read is a love story.
If it wasn't, what would be the point? — Leila Sales

You can't tell me my feelings are overwrought or absurd. You don't know. They are my feelings. — Leila Sales

Also, he was kind of cute. Not really, of course, since he was the enemy, and the enemy cannot possibly be cute. He was only cute enough to make me wish I could free my hands so that I could fix my hair. I mean, fix my hair, then punch him in the face, and then run. — Leila Sales

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and all. But my father and I have the sort of loving relationship in which, whenever he says more than one sentence in a a row to me, I want to stab myself in the heart with a a recently formed silver knife. — Leila Sales

A lot of the time I don't understand what I'm doing here. In life, I mean. I'm not saying that I wish I were dead or anything. Most of the time, I'm glad for the opportunity to be alive. I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with it. I think my purpose is to be a writer: to craft beautiful sentences that change the way people view the world, to create something meaningful outside of myself. That's what I think a lot of the time. But then sometimes I wonder if I just made that up in order to make myself feel like I have a reason for taking up space. — Leila Sales

Because if there's one thing we know about lesbians, it's that none of them wear bras. — Leila Sales

I do want to believe that there's some place in the world that's more mature than high school," Vicky said. "But I haven't found it yet. — Leila Sales

Tonight the Internet seemed filled with versions of me, like a fun house filled with mirrors. Some of them made me look prettier, and some of them made me look uglier, and some of them chopped me right in half, but none of them were right. — Leila Sales

As I rang the buzzer to his apartment building, I imagined him, maybe with a bunch of his friends, hiding behind a parked car, watching me, laughing, and saying, "Oh my God, I can't believe she actually showed up. Like she believed I was serious! — Leila Sales

I've gone to school with the same kids since kindergarten. And they knew what I was long before I did. I was uncool by FOURTH GRADE. How is it even possible to be an uncool fourth grader? Didn't we all just string together friendship bracelets and daydream about horses and pretend to solve mysteries back then? — Leila Sales

So why are you letting your issues get in the way of your talent? — Leila Sales

Hurting people, really, deeply hurting them - that isn't something you do on purpose. It's just a by-product of living. — Leila Sales

I don't believe that anyone who is a legitimately interesting person can be popular as a teenager," Mel went on. "Or ever, maybe. Popularity rewards the uninteresting. — Leila Sales

I'll pretend to be anyone or anything other than myself, but the problem is that no one is ever fooled. — Leila Sales

There are some people who want to win at whatever they do, even if the things they do are not the sort of things one wins at. — Leila Sales

I came here because I didn't want to be alone anymore" I answered him. "That's a good reason" he murmured. — Leila Sales

When you die, you just die. No ghost, no reincarnation, no heaven. People want to believe that their souls live on or whatever, but that's only because they can't handle the idea of the world going on without them. — Leila Sales

This is who Ezra is dating now. He is now into girls who are into dressing up as nineteenth century prostitutes. For the hats. — Leila Sales

Those are pretty much the only questions people ask Colonials. If they want you to tell them anything else, just make it up. They will believe you, because you are wearing a costume. — Leila Sales

As I sat alone at my desk in the dark, I thought about suicide. Sometimes I did that, thought about suicide, though not in an active way - it was more like pulling a lucky stone out of your back pocket. It was a comforting thing to have with you, so you could rub your fingers over it, reassure yourself that it was there if you needed it. I didn't want to try to kill myself, didn't want the blood and the hysterical parents and the guilt, any of it. But sometimes I liked the idea of simply not having to be here anymore, not having to deal with my life. As if death could be just an extended vacation.
But now what I thought about suicide was this: If I died tonight, everyone would believe this journal was true.
Like Amelia, Chava, and Sally, everyone would forever believe that I had written that diary. Everyone would believe they knew how I "really felt." And how dare they? — Leila Sales

But that's the thing: when you swear to take someone's side no matter what, sometimes you have to go to war for them. — Leila Sales

I have a theoryd that the first person you fall for creates a model for how you approach relationships going forward. Like, it frames how you'll look at every person who you date after that. — Leila Sales

I am a good person. I like myself the way I am. Many people love and care about me. I have a purpose in life. I don't want to kill myself. — Leila Sales

It was a ridiculous question. Did I _love_ Char? Did I feel about Char the same way I feel about the Beatles, string instruments in pop songs, the way Little Anthony sang high notes, the way Jerry Lee Lewis played piano? — Leila Sales

Because before the time when you're heartbroken, you get to be in love, and that's worth it. — Leila Sales

People have to create some sort of art so they have something to think about other than their shitty lives. — Leila Sales

Which to you have?' Mel asked, blocking the entry with his body. 'Talent or issues?' I paused for a moment, thought about this. 'Both,' I said at last. — Leila Sales

What really happened doesn't matter. What matters is how we agree to remember it. — Leila Sales

Why did you do this?" He was shaking. "Just tell me why."
I tried to muster up some of the righteous indignation that I'd felt on Friday night as I said, "You knocked over my gravestone!" But even to my ears the words sounded tinny and pathetic.
Dan's face was pale. "It was just a gravestone, Chelsea. And it was a mistake. I told you that already, and I meant it. I've never lied to you. My God, can't you tell the difference between a gravestone and a person you love? Can't you tel which one matters?"
But if I had to point to the real problem in my life, it's that I've never known the difference between a gravestone and a person I love. I have never known which is which until it's too late.
"All's fair in love and war," I reminded him, aiming for Tawny's tone. But my voice came out sounding just like me.
"Oh, yeah? And which is this?" he asked. "Love or war? — Leila Sales

We shouldn't be doing this." Dan broke the silence, his voice low. "We would both get in trouble." He stood up. "Let's go back."
"We shouldn't be doing what?" I scrambled to my feet. "What exactly are we doing?"
"This."
"You mean consorting?"
"Sure, consorting. Cavorting. Carousing." He paused to take a deep breath.
"Kissing." Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to mine. — Leila Sales

Throughout it all, you are still, always, you: beautiful and bruised, known and unknowable. — Leila Sales

Well, you can't have heartbreak without love," Dan pointed out. "If your heart was really broken, then at least you know you really loved him. — Leila Sales

I held my arm out in front of me and twisted it back and forth. Palm up. Palm down. Now you look fractured. Now you look whole. — Leila Sales

Sometimes you get everything you ever wanted, only it doesn't look like what you wanted anymore. — Leila Sales

Char," I said, and asked for a third time: "Where did you learn to dance?"
He looked up at me then, though his hand was still fiddling with dials. "I taught myself," he said finally. "I go out a lot."
I nodded like I was very wise and knew all about going out a lot.
"How old are you?" he asked me suddenly.
"Sixteen."
Char hung his headphones around his neck. "I like that."
"What?" I felt self-conscious all of a sudden, and I crossed my arms across my chest. "That I'm only sixteen?"
He laughed. "That sounds creepy. No, I like that you're honest. Some girls might claim to be older, you know, so they seem more mature or whatever. You're not pretending to be anything you're not."
"I suck at pretending to be anything I'm not," I told him, leaning against the booth's railing. "It's not for lack of trying. — Leila Sales

I had never killed myself before, so I had no idea what would I want to listen to when it was too late for me to skip to the next song. Like, maybe when you're dying, you actually want to hear something really upbeat. — Leila Sales

What do you mean, 'what happened to my Redcoat boy'?" Fiona asked, swirling her spoon around her dish.
"I mean, where did he go?"
"He went..." Fiona gazed off into the distance and shook her head slightly." He went the way of all things."
"You mean he died?"
Her focus snapped back to me. "No."
"Well, you made it sound like he died."
"I just meant that he went wherever it is that boys go when they go." She waved a hand. "Into the ether. Into the great beyond."
"It's still sounding like he died. Did you at least get his number? — Leila Sales

I know the Smiths, I snapped, because lord knows you can launch any kind of criticism at me, lord knows I've heard it all before, but don't you dare doubt my musical knowledge. There's not much I can do right, just this one thing, but you cannot take this one thing from me. — Leila Sales

Don't be special. That's what I would say to my younger self if I could pinpoint the moment when I went astray. But there was no one moment. I was always astray — Leila Sales

Sometimes you just have those days where everything goes wrong. But sometimes, and totally unexpectedly, something can go right. — Leila Sales

That's the problem with life. You never get enough time to stare at your ceiling and try to figure out what's going on. — Leila Sales

Nobody is so busy that they can't make time for the people they really care about. — Leila Sales

The thing about being an artist," Dad said, folding his newspaper and setting it down on the table, "is that there are always going to be people who want to stop you from doing your art. But this usually says more about them and their issues than it does about you and your art. Trust me. — Leila Sales

And isn't that such a freeing thing, to talk to somebody who already feels like your journal? — Leila Sales

There are dangers everywhere, I wanted to explain to her. On the school bus, in the cafeteria, at Start, inside me. No parent - no one at all - can step in and vanquish every one of them. — Leila Sales

If you're going to have the tortured soul of an artist, then you might as well create some art while you're at it. — Leila Sales

Don't take this as a compliment, but you actually don't smell that bad."
Dan let out a burst of surprised laughter. "What did you expect me to smell like?"
"Well ... " I wrinkled my nose. "I heard you guys soak your uniforms in urine."
"So you assumed I'd smell like pee."
"Yes," I said. "But you don't," I added kindly. — Leila Sales

The white boots with unicorns printed on them because, even though I'm fifteen, I still think the unicorn would be the world's greatest animal. — Leila Sales

You will learn to love again — Leila Sales

So did you actually try to kill yourself? Or did that weird bitch just make up the whole thing?'
Silently, I held up my left arm, wrist facing Emily. She crossed her arms and kept her lips squished together as she examined me for a moment, sizing up those three perfect scars. Finally, she said, 'You know that you're supposed to cut down to kill yourself, right? You did it wrong.'
I looked at Emily and thought about what would have happened if I'd cut the other way. Or what wouldn't have happened. Char wouldn't have broken up with me. Alex wouldn't be mad at me. Pippa wouldn't hate me.
And I never would have met Vicky. I would never have had my first kiss. I would never have worn rhinestone pumps. I would never have heard Big Audio Dynamite. I would never have discovered Start. I would never have known I could be a DJ.
Emily Wallace didn't know what she was talking about. She never had.
You did it wrong, she said.
'No,' I said to her. 'I didn't. — Leila Sales

Sometimes you have to give up something you are to get to who you want to be. — Leila Sales

We all want things that aren't good for us. — Leila Sales

Repeat after me: I deserve to be here.'
'I deserve to be here!' Harry and Dave declared, and I mumbled along with them.
'No one can take my dance space away from me,' Vicky intoned, and the three of us repeated her words.
'And finally: I don't care if anyone thinks I look stupid.'
'But I do look stupid,' I pointed out, as Harry yelled out his affirmations.
'So do I,' Vicky said. 'But I don't care. — Leila Sales

It took me a minute more of standing there before I realized that I'd been dismissed. Before I
realized that a relationship can end just like that. — Leila Sales

Don't you ever want to have just one thing that no one else knows about, so no one can ruin it for you? — Leila Sales

Theater class seemed like a way to play pretend, only with everyone paying attention to me. — Leila Sales

I had once thought that I wanted to get revenge by dying. But getting revenge by living, and living well, was much, much sweeter. — Leila Sales

You were good."

It was a very small compliment, but it came from someone who mattered, about something that mattered. I felt a smile spread across my face. "Really? — Leila Sales

I didn't know. I feel sometimes like ... there are all these rules. Just to be a person. You know? You're supposed to carry a shoulder bag, not a backpack. You're supposed to wear headbands, or you're not supposed to wear headbands. It's okay to describe yourself as likeable, but it's not okay to describe yourself as eloquent. You can sit in the front of the school bus, but you can't sit in the middle. You're not supposed to be with a boy, even when he wants you to. I didn't know that. There are so many rules, and they don't make any sense, and I just can't learn them all — Leila Sales

You think it's so easy to change yourself. You think it's so easy, but it's not. True, things don't stay the same forever: couches are replaced, boys leave, you discover a song, your body becomes forever scarred. And with each of these moments you change and change again, your true self spinning, shifting positions
but always at last it returns to you, like a dancer on the floor. Because throughout it all, you are still, always, you: beautiful and bruised, known and unknowable. And isn't that - just you - enough. — Leila Sales

I've spent most of my life perfecting the craft of living history. I have no practice at living in the present. — Leila Sales

The popular music wasn't interesting-bad, it was bad-bad. Auto-Tuned vocalists who couldn't really sing; offensively simplistic instrumentation; grating melodies. Like they thought we were stupid. — Leila Sales

I was smiling like a crazy person because I has just made a hundred people dance, I had just made a hundred people scream, I had just made a hundred people happy. I, Elise, using my own power, had made people happy. — Leila Sales

Well, I will tell you: making friends is actually not that hard when you drop every single one of your standards. — Leila Sales

Sally and Chava eat only raw vegetables for lunch because they are trying to lose weight. Then they split a pack of Entenmann's doughnuts for dessert. — Leila Sales

If you can swing it, getting arrested is the high point of the Fourth of July. Also, the reading of the Declaration of Independence is exciting. (Yes, the Declaration was written two years after Essex is officially set. No, this doesn't stop us.) [ ... ] Essex stayed open late that night, for the holiday. Our patriotism cannot be constrained by an eight-hour workday. — Leila Sales

That waitress was flirting with me," Dad announced once we were out of the restaurant. He said it in his "whispering voice," which meant it was still loud enough for the waitress, all of her coworkers, and the shoppers at every other store in the mall to overhear.
"Ew," I said. "She was not."
Dad chuckled with delight over how hot and eligible he imagined himself to be. "She kept coming over to 'try to collect my plate' ... "
"Because that is her job," I reminded him.
"And the way she looked at your mother? Pure jealousy!" Dad slipped his arm around Mom's waist. "Poor thing. I left her a big tip. — Leila Sales

A boy once told me that love without heartbreak is just a pretty myth. — Leila Sales

Anyone who said I believe in you obviously didn't know me very well. — Leila Sales

Some people will mess with you, whenever they want, and for no reason except that they can. But hurting yourself is giving those people all the power, and they don't deserve it. Why would they deserve to have control over your life? Because they're cool? Because they're pretty? That's completely illogical. — Leila Sales

United we stand, divided we fall

Just watch us as we beat ya'll.

You say 'brother against brother'?

Well, my brother screwed your mother

And she liked it!

We'll kick your shins and break your knee

'Cause all you got is Robert E. Lee.

Farbs! — Leila Sales

I didn't want to try to kill myself, didn't want the blood and the hysterical parents and the guilt, any of it. But sometimes I liked the idea of simply not having to be here anymore, not having to deal with my life. As if death could be just an extended vacation. — Leila Sales

What do you think it takes to reinvent yourself as an all-new person, a person who makes sense, who belongs? Do you change your clothes, your hair, your face? Go on, then. Do it. Pierce your ears, trim your bangs, buy a new purse. They will still see past that, see you, the girl who is still too scared, still too smart for her own good, still a beat behind, still, always, wrong. Change all you want; you can't change that. — Leila Sales

I glared at him. "You came all the way to Essex just to spy on us?"
"Yeah." He smirked. "I crossed the street. It was really rough. — Leila Sales

People are who they are and, try as you might, you cannot make them be what you want them to be. — Leila Sales

I didn't need to be the most exciting, beautiful, beloved girl in the world. I just needed not to be me anymore. — Leila Sales

Life is sort of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if you know what I mean. Some days are too big. Some days are much too small. But today was one of those rare days that was just right. — Leila Sales

I think love without heartbreak is a myth. A pretty myth, but the kind of myth that ultimately makes us feel worse about ourselves because we're somehow not able to make it come true. — Leila Sales

I had always thought that if I just did something extraordinary enough, then people would like me. But that wasn't true. You will drive away everyone by being extraordinary ... . But you, you will never learn your lesson. The world embraces ordinary. The world will never embrace you. — Leila Sales

I wasn't mad. I didn't need to scream and attack a piece of furniture. I just needed someone to like me. — Leila Sales

I wasn't going anywhere, so how could I be going in the wrong direction? — Leila Sales

But imagination is so often no match for the absurdity, the randomness, the tragedy of reality. — Leila Sales

Vanilla and vanilla bean are two different flavors, and vanilla bean is a much more intense experience — Leila Sales

In a way, Amelia Kindl had been right when she once said to me, 'I saved your life.' She was right, but not in the way she meant. When she saw the suicide note on Elise Dembowski's Super-Secret Diary and called my father, she set into motion the chain of events that led me to being in the DJ booth tonight. And that, in a way, had saved my life. — Leila Sales

Char had a phone number. He had a home. He probably had a job or a college and a last name and parents and all of that, too. He didn't just spring into existence late on Thursday night and then blink out again at two a.m. He was a real person. — Leila Sales

Of course, as always, there is an arbitrary, invisible fence in place. You can't see it, but it will always keep you out. It will always encircle happiness and keep you out. — Leila Sales

Isn't that funny, to think that the people who have lived in your daydreams for the past two weeks, the people whom you've drawn in your chemistry notebook, to think that those people might not even know who you are? — Leila Sales

Oh, yeah, any functioning society has got to have its doctors, its teachers, and its nightlife photographers. — Leila Sales

This should have been a red flag, I realize in retrospect. Working really hard on anything is, by definition, not cool. — Leila Sales

If you want something to be amazing, if you really want it, do you think you can somehow make it become that way? Like you somehow imbue it with amazingness, even if it doesn't have anything special inherent to it? — Leila Sales