Nina Lacour Quotes

I almost expect to see the shoe box rising and falling with journal's breath. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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

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. ~ Nina LaCour

As much as people want to look on the bright side, skip straight to the future when everything will be okay, the truth is that there is this time, where you sometimes have trouble breathing, and you feel powerless. Like you're screaming and no one hears you, and the myth of the happy future is nothing you can count on, and the only word that makes sense is escape. ~ Nina LaCour

We have photographed the trip we were supposed to have. The one where all any of us felt was happy, and the world was only beautiful, and all of the colors were the brightest versions of themselves. ~ Nina LaCour

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

I was afraid of my loneliness. And how I'd been tricked. And the way I'd convinced myself of so much: that I wasn't sad, that I wasn't alone. ~ Nina LaCour

I learn that I am a tiny piece of a miraculous world. ~ Nina LaCour

Something in me is cracking open, the light coming through is so bright it hurts, and the rest of me is still here, wounded, even though I know it's all for the best. ~ Nina LaCour

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

I've been waiting for this for so long
something new, life after high school. ~ Nina LaCour

I face away from her for a long time so that she won't see my sadness. To be held like that, to be let go. ~ Nina LaCour

Whatever I decide, I might be making a mistake. But if I'm going to make a mistake I want it to be passionate ~ Nina LaCour

As much as I had wanted a love story out of a movie, I know now that movies can only hope to to capture this kind of love. ~ Nina LaCour

Maybe we always were the people we imagined ourselves to be. ~ Nina LaCour

We all get so afraid. We need to be brave. ~ Nina LaCour

Is it possible to get over a voice like this? Someday, I'd like to be able to hear her speak a sentence on the phone with out it making me want to hang up, get in my car, and drive as many miles as it takes to kiss her. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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

She lets go.
Touch me again, I want to tell her. But I don't. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

No," I say. "I didn't know that," and as I say it I feel flooded with bitterness at all the things Ingrid kept secret from me. ~ Nina LaCour

I told Caitlin 'we have to leave' even though I knew that her fifth period class is the only one she likes because mr.harris is the coolest teacher I've never had. She could tell I meant it, though, because she got her serious face on and just left with me. That's why I love her so much. That's why I wish I was a better person. ~ Nina LaCour

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

Would you really fight for him?" I nod.
But the nod isn't enough, so I go on.
"In fact, I would tear through rubble with my bare hands to get to him. I would lift cars. I would wrestle down anyone who said we shouldn't be together. I would stare down life and kick it in the ass if I had to. Because if you want to know the truth
if you really want to know the truth
none of that could be nearly as hard as being in love with him and not being able to tell anyone about it. Including him. I have this thing inside me, and it's angry and it's scared and it's uncertain and most of all it's so completely in love with him, and it would do anything to keep him, even if it means things staying the way they are now. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

It isn't the happy ending that Ingrid and I have 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 had you close ~ Nina LaCour

I am a girl ready to explode into nothing. ~ Nina LaCour

It's a dark place, not knowing. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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

Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe if we all force ourselves to act like we're okay even if we're not, eventually things will get better. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

There are many ways of being alone. ~ Nina LaCour

Blue and pink made mud, made dirt, made rock
I am mud, I am dirt, I am rock
I am nature, a force of nature
I am the color that remains
when everything else is washed away ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

There's nothing stupid about wanting to be loved. Believe me. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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

She has us, I know, but for all people talk about friends as being the same as family, I know that, really, they aren't. At least not when you're eighteen. Not when sometimes you need your mother. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

It's an ache. A heavy sadness. The kind that is brought on by heartbreak and then perpetuated by everything that reminds you of the way it's broken. The kind that feels impossible to shrug off or tuck away. But there is another feeling, too, surfacing, and soon I discover that it's the kind that makes the heartbreak almost something to savor because it is so simple and true. ~ Nina LaCour

There are no scenes in life, there are only minutes. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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. ~ Nina LaCour

I think I'll close my eyes, too, try to sleep away the sick feeling, the whisper that I am a waste of her time, her money, her effort. ~ Nina LaCour

You go through life thinking there's so much you need...Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother. ~ Nina LaCour

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? ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

It was terrifying, the idea that we could fall asleep girls, minty breathed and nightgowned, and wake to find ourselves wolves. "I ~ Nina LaCour

Friendship is about more than facts. It's about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don't. But I guess it's also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don't end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they've become. ~ Nina LaCour

It's about what I know is true. Because I'm looking at this bright red storm of color on a canvas, at all my delicate lines and passionate brushstrokes. I'm looking at something so urgent and true, so far beyond what I thought I was capable of making. ~ Nina LaCour

I don't know if any of this would have happened if we had been at home ... Would we have crammed ourselves into the bathroom of a San Francisco restaurant to play her song? I doubt it. There's something about distance, being removed from what's familiar, that let's things happen. ~ Nina LaCour

That girl she was trying to reach- she must have been running from something. She must have been someone special, for her friend to keep trying so hard. Too bad she was gone now. ~ Nina LaCour

All through my chest and my stomach is this regret over what I'm doing to Dylan, in my hands and my feet is this electricity at the thought of Taylor leaning close to me, and all over my whole body, way, deep inside it, is this hurting over Ingrid. I could scream at the top of my lungs and the sound I would make wouldn't be half as loud as I'd need it to be. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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. ~ Nina LaCour

Don't you want to kiss me?' she asks.
She smiles just a little, a hopeful, sweet smile, but buried in it is that confidence that slays me. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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

It sucks to lose your best friend, even if only to distance. Even when it isn't really losing her at all. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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

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. ~ Nina LaCour

the heart is a treacherous beast ~ Nina LaCour

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

People talk about coming out as though it's this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I'm only eighteen and it already exhausts me. ~ Nina LaCour

Everyone is always telling my generation that we aren't going to know how to engage with people. We're all going to end up with computer chips implanted in our brains and screens stuck in our eyes like contact lenses. But no one gives us any solutions, so I decided to find my own. ~ Nina LaCour

There are degrees of obsession, of awareness, of grief, of insanity. ~ Nina LaCour

I could score myself a bottle of whiskey (though I promised Gramps I wouldn't) and let it make me glow, let all the rooms edges go soft, let the memories out of their cages. ~ Nina LaCour

She won't ask if I'm okay because she'll already know that for us Are you okay? is an impossible question. ~ Nina LaCour

Here it is, all at once: rightness.
Not the graffiti itself, even though it's undeniably spectacular, but this feeling of making plans and carrying them them through, of meeting people and getting to know them, of being asked to do something and saying Yes, of wanting something, asking for it, making it happen. ~ Nina LaCour

I can't believe that we could be so impermanent ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

Music is a powerful way for people to express themselves ~ Nina LaCour

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

I thought they were helping you through everything." "No," I say. "I was alone there."
In her face something is shifting. A set of facts to replace all the guessing I made her do. ~ Nina LaCour

I can't think of enough expletives to perfectly capture this moment. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

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

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

This is how it works. You bust your ass. Not everything goes your way, and then, after a while, you get to that point. You get to make your own decisions and people look to you for approval on their work. ~ Nina LaCour

I always knew what I wanted to do, I just didn't know I could do it. ~ Nina LaCour

Maybe she thinks I'm being dramatic. Maybe I am. But I know that there's a difference between how I used to understand things and how I do now. 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. ~ Nina LaCour

Her hand presses hard and insistant on my back, her breasts press against mine. ~ Nina LaCour

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

Empathy is wonderful, but you can still overdose on it if you try too much to fast. ~ Nina LaCour

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. ~ Nina LaCour

my life is just waiting for you to get started. ~ Nina LaCour

From the top of Castro Street, it looks like a river of people. It looks, I realize, like a march - rows and rows of people, gathered to exert their power. Only this time we aren't marching. We don't need to show our numbers to show our worth. This time our power comes from staying in this space, from walking the hallowed ground of our history and bringing it to life. I am alone, yes. But I am a part of everything. I feel it - I've been living in a world, but what I have is a universe. ~ Nina LaCour

I'm sorry I left without telling you," she says. "I wasn't ready. I wanted it so much, and I wasn't ready for that. ~ Nina LaCour

And I understand what this is. It's the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy. It's what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. ~ Nina LaCour

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

I decide that it can't be that hard to be the person you want to be. What's difficult is finding a place in a world with other people, who want different things for themselves. ~ LaCour Nina