420 Quotes by Caitlin Moran

And you will be quite on your own when you do all this. There is no academy where you can learn to be yourself; there is no line manager slowly urging you toward the correct answer. You are midwife to yourself, and will give birth to yourself, over and over, in dark rooms, alone.

You should write, write, write every day, and learn to edit and pare it right back so you’re proud of every sentence, and each one is either being useful or beautiful, but hopefully both.

Being able to wear underwear brilliantly is such a key talent for a woman that there are even competitions to judge who is the best at it: Miss America, Miss World, Miss International, Miss Universe. You can call this “the swimsuit round” all you like – we know what it really means. It’s the “bra and undies round.

Because I haven’t yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind.

I don’t want him to pity me. I don’t want him to see what I look like when I do something for the first time. I don’t want anyone watching me change. I will do all my changing in private. In public I am, always, the finished thing. The right thing, for the right place. A chrysalis is hung in the dark.

Whenever I see a taboo, I just think that’s something we need to drag screaming out into the light and discuss. Because taboos are where our fears live, and taboos are the things that keep us tiny. Particularly for women.

It’s very important my parent’s don’t think I’m starting to fall in love with people, because then they might notice that I’m growing up, and I’m kind of trying to keep it a secret. I think it will cause an incident.

The sudden noise through the headphones is disconcerting – a massive, evil-sounding slab of guitar, seemingly played with the sole intention of terrifying anyone who hasn’t yet lived through a roughly equivalent sonic experience, such as riding their tricycle under a malfunctioning cement mixer full of dying children.

I am an enthusiast who’s been pretending to be a cynic. But I have been correctly labeled now. I am for things – not against them. I must remember this. Mainly because this is more fun. It’s exhausting being cynical. You are trying to be an immovable, angry rock in the middle of a stream. But the stream will not move. It is you that will be worn down to dull silt.