23 Quotes by Kate Elizabeth Russell

He's always going to be old. He has to be. That's the only way I can stay young and dripping with beauty.

I think we're very similar, Nessa," he whispers. "From the way you write, I can tell you're a dark romantic like me. You like dark things.

My parents stare straight ahead, their anger and grief palpable enough to taste. I open my mouth to let it all in and swallow it whole, where deep in my belly it turns into blame.

After a while, she gives up repeating the same lines, knowing there comes a point when they no longer matter, that what I need isn’t absolution but to hold myself accountable before a witness.

So when my mother asks me to forgive her, I say, "Of course I do."I don't tell her again that she couldn't have stopped it, that it wasn't her fault and that she didn't deserve it. I swallow those words instead. Maybe somewhere deep in my belly, they'll take root and grow.

I don't remember, not exactly. So many of my memories from back then are shadowy, incomplete. I need him to fill in the gaps, though sometimes the girl he describes sounds like a stranger.

To be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing

I don’t feel forced, and I know I have the power to say no, but that isn’t the same as being in charge.

I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at them. I'm mad at the world that turned him into a monster when all he did was have the bad luck of falling in love with me.