109 Quotes by Amy Reed

Every since I got sick, all I’ve done is think about how everyone else is feeling.

But Erin has empathy, lots of it, so much it hurts sometimes, so much that other people’s pain turns into her own pain and makes her completely incapable of doing anything useful for anyone. That’s why it’s easier to avoid it than to engage. It’s easier to try to ignore it than try to comfort whoever’s hurting, because usually that backfires and makes things worse.

All I know is I feel crazy, like I want to cry and laugh and scream at the same time.

They know she heard them, but they don’t care, or maybe they even wanted her to. Like she’s not even a person, not someone with feelings, not someone who can get hurt. Just an object. Just something they can use.

This is the first time in I don’t know how long that I’ve come even close to caring what happens next. I guess you could call that hope.

Maybe sometimes you have to leave before you’re ready to let go; sometimes you have to leave before someone is ready to let go of you. That’s the rub of it-if you wait until you’re ready to do everything, you’ll never get anything done.

The problem with humans is they’re too enamored with themselves, and with mammals in general. As if big brains and live birth are necessarily signs of superiority. As if the hairy, air-breathing world is the only one that matters.

Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. His body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence.

What are you supposed to do when you forget what normal feels like?