Mindy McGinnis Quotes

In my mind there is a scale.
I do not know how many small lives add up to a big one, or if there is a formula to work it out. How many cats do I have to save? How many dogs? How many injured animals on the road do I have to drag to safety, their blood on my hands, their wild-smelling hair on my clothes?

Newness wears off.
This is something I've learned about relationships. I've had more than a few run their course, the idiosyncrasies that were once endearing becoming annoying, the jump of my heart into my throat at the sight of her lessening to a skip, then a pause, then the bare recognition that at some point slips into dread, and you know it's time to end it.
It's different with Alex. The newness might have faded, which is inevitable, but it's grown into something better. The panic of not being able to come up with something to say to her has settled into the comfort of companionable silence, my hand resting on her knee, or her head on my chest. The frantic need to be near her and know how she feels has morphed into an almost pleasant ache of missing her when she's not with me, because I know we'll be together again.

Do you want to die like this?" Mother had asked, that night and every night since then.
Lynn's answer never changed. "No."
And Mother's response, their evening prayer. "Then you will have to kill.

But sometimes it swings just right and there's a moment of suspension when I can't feel it. The rope goes slack and the laws of physics give me one second of relief. I can laugh and smile and feel something else. But those same laws undo me, and when it swings back there's a sharp tug on my heart to remind me that I forgot.

There are laws in place that stop us from doing things. This is what we tell ourselves. In truth we stop ourselves; the law is a guideline for how to punish someone who is caught.

Sometimes the loveliest places harbor the worst monsters.

But boys will be boys, our favorite phrase that excuses so many things, while the only thing we have for the opposite gender is women, said with disdain and punctuated with an eye roll.

And there's nothing wrong with that."

And there wasn't. And there isn't. And I'll keep doing it.

I'll keep doing it even though she's not here to defend.

Because there are others like him still.

Men got two guns, you know. One for now," he tapped the barrel of his gun against her nose. "And one for later." When his free hand went to his zipper, she twisted underneath him, bringing her knee into his groin and pulling her knife from her boot.
"Mother taught me to carry a knife for always."
She left him holding his intestines in disbelief as she disappeared down the hill, his gun tucked securely in her waistband.

But that's not going to help me sleep, so I pretend.
I pretend that I make the world a better place.

I want this, I do, but the bigness of the world ... it ... it kinda scares the shit out of me.

Thank you,' Mom says, dropping one of my bags to the floor with a huff. There's a fine sheen of sweat on her upper lip. It must be exhausting carrying around all of my issues.

Do no harm. Be nice. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
But what if I don't want to catch the flies? What if I'd rather see them swatted?

If either one of you is ever in a situation you're not entirely comfortable with - call me. I don't care what time it is. I don't care who is there or what is going on. You call me and I will come get you.

Why should I care if the tides rise again if I am only a corpse riding the waves?

Little things build up if you live with someone.

Venting your primal self in an emotional moment can be more than your socially constructed self can handle after the fact," Alex says, her eyes gliding over me. "Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your voice is weak. And your conscience is reasserting itself.

So then the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which personally I think is rather a mouthful,' Adelaide said as she set down her wineglass.
'I'm sure others have much shorter terms,' the doctor said, sawing into his steak with more vigor than necessary.
'Such as?' Grace asked.
'There are plenty who just call us bitches, dear.

She's like a wild animal ready to bolt, but with nowhere to go. She knows the hurt is inside and running won't help.

But Lucy had grown up safe and sheltered, and she believed people were good. "I trust him," she said, holding his gaze. What she didn't add was that she'd hold the devil's hand if he offered to help her over the mountains.

I am drawn to the water, yet I know it's not what calls me.

I use my markers as I go from place to place. Seeing evidence of my small rebellions, spots where my death was allowed to vent and has impacted the world around me, no longer safely encapsulated inside. My life is made of these tiny maps, my paths always steady as I move inside a constricted area, the only one I should ever be allowed to know.
My violence is everywhere here.
And I like it.

the insane are simply people who have chosen not to participate in the world in the same manner as the majority,

It's a reflex, something that's been ingrained in me. Do no harm. Be nice. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

We use objects to navigate spaces, making a map in our heads as neurons fire, pathways so well-worn we don't even know we reference them as we move from one location to the next, the same pattern. Every day.

You're my hero, Mickey Catalan," Lydia says into my ear, over the roar of
the crowd.
"Heroine," I correct her.
"Hoo - fucking - ray!" Bella Right screams at me when I get into the
dugout.
Everyone is yelling my name.
Right now, everyone loves me.
Right now, I even love myself.

I don't tell her that we're both still sulking from the use of the word psychotic.
Because if that's accurate then I'm crazy and she doesn't exist.
Unacceptable.
For both of us.

When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn't understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what. Sometimes the systems don't work. Families spend their weekend afternoons at animal shelters, even when they're not looking for a pet. They come to see the unwanted and unloved. The cats and dogs who don't understand why they are these things. They are petted and combed, walked and fed, cooed over and kissed. Then they go back in their cages and sometimes tears are shed. Fuzzy faces peering through bars can be unbearable for many. Change the face to a human one and the reaction changes. The reason why is because people should know better. But our logic is skewed in this respect. A dog that bites is a dead dog. First day at the shelter and I already saw one put to sleep, which in itself is a misleading phrase. Sleep implies that you have the option of waking up. Once their bodies pass unconsciousness to something deeper where systems start to fail, they revolt a little bit, put up a fight on a molecular level. They kick. They cry. They don't want to go. And this happ

It all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines.

I am a wolf that my sister kept in a cage, until her hand was removed.

Kiddo, you and me don't do so well in situations we can't control.'
'Don't think I care for that.

There's a part of everyone deep down inside of them not meant for you.

I wore high heels for the first time and they kept sticking in the mud.

I'm telling you, Claire. It doesn't matter. What you were wearing. What you look like. Nothing. Watch the nature channel. Predators go for the easy prey." I

Nothing is ours; nothing is sacred. The one thing we shared was pulled into pieces, memorialized and mythologized so that everyone could participate in it.

You can't change the things you've done. It's now and the here on out you've got control of.

Who is your supervisor?" she asks, glancing around the room as if suddenly realizing she's the only adult here.
"God," I say.

In a world like this, you pay it forward, 'cause more than likely you didn't deserve it when you got it the first time.

She's like the people who will feed a stray cat all summer but not let them in their house when winter comes.

Those cats die, by the way.

A tiny crack of kindness that makes him all the more hateful, because if there's a version of him that feeds birds as winter descends, then there's a decency that he chose to overlook when he did other things.

But the gray ridge of the mountains that sliced through the map was a weight on her heart, an obstacle to be met.

So I had a choice: I could either not do anything for the rest of my life, or I could suck it up and act like it didn't bother me And you know what? If you pretend long enough that it doesn't bother you, pretty soon it actually doesn't.

In the anonymous dark, the air was heavy with thoughts, the blond girl sitting next to me fighting to breathe normally when a boy suggested she'd be the one raped of the five of us who were called out.

It's not safe for me to be out, but they rattled my cage.

A puppy feels like life and love. Their entire bodies are soft - fur, skin, the pads of their feet new and delicate. They radiate warmth in the way science can explain, but it goes further than that. The heat of affection pours out of their eyes and makes their little butts wiggle like crazy as soon as they see a person - they don't even care who. They're love, encapsulated.

When I say the things that don't make sense you answer me anyway. It's like having green in your shirt.

Lynn pulled her own rifle into her lap, the cold metal bringing more comfort to her than Mother's touch ever could. Her finger curled around the trigger, hugging it tight in the life-taking embrace that she'd learned so long ago. She slipped onto her belly beside Mother, watching the sunlight bounce off the twin barrels of their rifles. Waiting was always the worst part, the crack of the rifle a relief.

Anna told me I would understand about boys one day.
She said that everything would change and I would look at them differently, assess their bodies and their words, the way their eyes moved when they talked to me. She said I'd not only want to answer them but that I'd learn how, knowing which words to use, how to give meaning to a pause.
Then a man took her.
A man took her before I learned any of these things. He took her and kept her for a while, put things inside of her. Of course the obvious thing, but also some others, like he was curious if they'd fit. Then he got bored. Then he got creative.
Then my sister was gone and I thought: I understand about boys now.
And she was right. Everything did change. I look at them differently and I assess their bodies and watch their eyes and weigh their words.
But not in the way she meant.

But how can I find fault with your deeds when without them our paths would never have crossed? If you are mad then I owe my life to a madman, and he is no less dear to me for his actions. Truly evil people do exist, this I know, but I do not count you among them. Instead, I choose to see you as a good person who has done bad things, and who among us cannot be dubbed so?

It's not the sheep that call to me, but the other wolves. I want to run with them, so that I may tear out their throats when they threaten my flock. But I can't return to the sheep with blood on my breath; they will shy away from me.

I've always known my body, its strength and purpose, the long muscles of my legs and the lean bulge of my biceps. This is different; this is an intimacy with my skeleton, from the exposed broken tips in my foot to the sharp corner of my jaw digging into the ground as I try to get comfortable. I'm learning the deeper parts of me, maybe even past the ones a doctor can name. Right down into my soft bits and then further, where things you can't actually touch live.

All the stupid people I know are happy.

And I hug her again. Because I just can't stop touching this girl.

What happens next is you're more likely to be a victim of sexual assault," he says, and I feel Alex tense beside me. "Girls, one in three of you." He points right at me, Alex, Sara, Branley, and Lila. "There are five right here, so let's be generous and say it's just one. Which one of you will it be?"
From the left a boy yells, "Please say it's Branley," followed by a chorus of laughter.

"Let me guess, she's the hot one, right?" Nolan says, smiling along with them. "Guess what - one of you is the one who's going to do it."

That shuts it down, fast.

"It's a small town," he goes on. "Ninety percent of rapes are acquaintance rapes - that means you know your attacker, girls. And guys, that means you know the girl you damaged physically, emotionally, and mentally. One in six of you boys is going to be sexually assaulted too, by the way.

You don't do that to me. I'm Branley Jacobs!" She says her own name the way most of the guys do, a mix of How the Hell Can That Even Exist and Can I Make It Mine?

Living things will fight to stay that way.

But I guess maybe Mom and Dad are smart enough to realize that pointing out the second hand on the clock isn't going to suddenly mend the fissure straight through my aorta.
Here's the thing, though- they were right.
We're deep into winter and I've stopped feeling like there is a spear in my chest every time he's up against Branlet in the hallway.

Violence begets violence, and if I want to be a cog in that wheel, I have to accept when it stops on me.

All I have is a scratch," I explain. "One little, tiny …" I break down again. Because it's not just a little tiny scratch, and I now that. The softest parts of my skin are under a stranger's dirty fingernails, my DNA embedded there along with fast-food grease and his own dandruff. Some of my cells are with him right now and I don't want them to be. I want them back. I want them all right where they belong and I can't even imagine if it were the other way around, if I'd woken up with a miasma of them deep inside of me, and the thought sends me retching again, the sound almost drowning out the buzzing of my phone.

The dead know nothing, and the living have secrets.

Sometimes I forget for one second and it hurts.
It's a different kind of pain than the constant, the weight that hangs from my heart. It swings from twine embedded so deeply that my aorta has grown around it. Blood pulses past rope in the chambers of my heart, dragging away tiny fibers until my whole body is suffused and pain is all I am and ever can be.

Not from here is one of the most damning insults that can be tossed, carrying with it the eternal question mark of what an outsider might be carrying inside of them, a mental or biological dark passenger that will rear up and bite your ass thirty years down the road.

Before and after the crime, not just during, in order

You shouldn't be that way about her," Alex says. "I hear what people say and I bet half of it isn't even true. And even if it is - fine. She's no different from you and me; she wants to have sex. So let her.

I don't want the memories that I have.

These are your friends now, Grace Mae. A madman who eats cancer in the dark and another who searches for a different kind of killer, the kind who smiles at you in the light of day.

He goes without looking back, somehow knowing that the crazy thing I just did was healthier for me than all the normal shit I've been doing every day just to get by.

Grace had learned long ago that the true horrors of this world were other people.

We're cleaning cat ears.

Rhonda doesn't require us to come in on Sundays, but somebody has to feed the animals. Yesterday Alex and I helped five cats and two dogs find homes...We agreed we probably could have placed a couple more cats if their ears were nice and pink inside like in the wet-food commercials. We told Rhonda to take a much-deserved break today and we'd come in, feed everybody, and make our cats a little more like the ones on TV.

So I skipped church to clean cat ears.

You're Lucy, my little one, and that is no small thing.

Just know that there's bad men in the world, and dying fast by your mother is a better way than theirs.

Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no water.

I'd lost everything I had. I didn't have the heart to take from someone else." "Plus I would've sniped your ass.

There are parts of yourself that you hate; parts that you know other people wouldn't understand.

I stopped you because it's easier to fantasize about violence than actually perform it," she says a few minutes later. "Most people consider things they wouldn't do in real life, and there's enough visceral satisfaction in the thought to alleviate the emotion. In reality, hurting another person on purpose is not a simple task, and not everyone is up to it.

Why me, then?" I ask. "Why not Branley? She's way hotter and was just as drunk as I was."
Alex shakes her head as she sits back down. "Physical attractiveness has nothing to do with it. You were alone, isolated, and weak. The three of them had been watching girls all night, waiting for someone to separate from a group. It happened to be you, but it could've been anyone else. Opportunity is what matters, nothing else. […] I'm telling you, Claire. It doesn't matter. What you were wearing. What you look like. Nothing. Watch the nature channel. Predators go for the easy prey.

Hiking - much like drinking - is something that sounds more fun to the uninitiated than it actually is.

Type of men who gather up seven of themselves to attack two women in the middle of the night generally won't go back for dead friends.

Another low moan rose from the grass. "That was a good shot," Mother said, nodding toward it.
"Not good enough."
Mother shrugged. "It was dark." She rose and stretched out her stiff body, a sign that she truly felt safe. "You'll get better."
Another cry. Mother licked her finger, tested the wind, and fired once into the night.
Silence fell.

I want to reach inside and pluck the darkness out of her

I don't like to come home. Other houses have warmth in them, the lines between the people who live there humming with unspent energy ready to unreel. Conversations from the past still hover in the air, waiting for the threads to be picked up again. The air here is cold, empty to the point of sterility. When I hear my name it's shocking, a word that isn't spoken. Taboo.

I'll keep doing it even though she's not here to defend.
Because there are others like him still. Tonight they used words they know, words that don't bother people anymore. They said bitch. They told another girl they would put their dicks in her mouth. No one protested because this is our language now. But then I used my words, strung in phrases that cut deep, and people paid attention; people gasped. People didn't know what to think.
My language is shocking.

There's different ways of doing things wrong, Lynn, and not all of it is choosing to hurt others. Sometimes it's the things you don't do that make you feel the worst.

I get it. Decent guys backslide into meth and gang rape. Good guys knock up their girlfriends and flip burgers.

Ray Parsons, you have no soul", she says, her voice gaining volume as she speaks. "You are a bag of skin. You are a pile of bones. Every cell that has ever split inside of you was a waste of energy. Where you walk you leave a vacuum. Your existence should cease.

With Anna gone, we listen for footfalls, each of us avoiding the other with an intense concentration. Occasionally we cross paths by accident, our bubbles of personal space like a Venn diagram, becoming darker where they overlap.
Dad left.
Anna is gone.
I have never been here.

That's life, little one - lots of little maybes and what ifs all lined up in a row. And if you put your mind to following some of them that never came about, you'll get lost and not find your way back to the way it really is.

You see it in all animals - the female of the species is more deadly than the male.'

'Except humans.

I didn't know a living person could hurt you so badly.
When the pain originates with someone who is gone, it's your own memory that hurts you. Walking through the house, touching things they've touched, hearing sounds they heard, wondering what they would've thought of one thing or another. This is pain that I know, pain that I can handle, pain that is so much a part of me that if it were removed I would not be whole.
But when it's someone who's alive who hurts you, the pain can't be escaped. The things they've touched are still warm because they were just there, the sounds they hear reach your ears too - sometimes their own voice, and it's excruciating to bear. I know what he thinks about this, that, or the other because I can hear him saying so. But not to me. He doesn't talk to me anymore.

I've been trying to do better about killing people," Lynn said. "Then fate puts you in my path.