7 Quotes by Kristen Arnett

The best way to get through anything at home is to just stay at work.

Though I shy away from friendly intimacy like hugging, but I’m fascinated by what fingers and thumbs and palms can do. Dexterity. Manipulation. The movement of our speech so often contained in the movement of our hands. Mine are birds when I speak, flapping until I ascend and reach the apex of my sentence. When I’m stressed, I move my fingers like they’re gears that power the momentum of my thoughts. Help me reach the point, I beg, as they open and fold and smack into each other.

Too much feeling in his body to handle anything appropriately.

What I should have told him that day: love makes you an open wound, susceptible to infection. But he was young then and so was I, and I wanted their happiness more than my own. So I swallowed my pain and let myself pretend love could flourish if I didn't stand in its way.

I couldn't understand why he was acting this way. I took a breath, trying to think up something reasonable to counter his argument. "That is the stupidest thing you've ever said.

I'd hated that because it didn't feel how I expected romance to feel: stressful and kind of blood-soaked, a constant power struggle.

It hadn't felt necessary to learn more about my mother outside of her existence on the periphery of my life. She cleaned our clothes and bought us groceries. Made our meals, mopped and dusted, trimmed the tree. My father was the one I'd admired. He was the one I'd wanted to be like.