A.S. King Quotes

#1. New skin is a miracle. It's proof that we can heal.

A.S. King

#2. What does a boy who' witnessed what Charlie's witnessed know about trust? How does a boy like that discern right from wrong?

A.S. King

#3. I can't stop myself from reaching for the bottle that's under my seat. I've gone all night without a sip, but it's not about being addicted. It's about being told what to do my whole life and doing it and then losing everything anyway.

A.S. King

#4. I demand to break rule number #5
I demand to kiss her today. Right now, even.

A.S. King

#5. Are there baby steps toward complete loserdom, and if so, how many are there to go?

A.S. King

#6. Is it okay to lie in order to be happy?

A.S. King

#7. I wished I could take her to the library and hand her over to the librarians. Please teach her about everything, I'd say.

A.S. King

#8. He said, "Charlie isn't like us, you know?" and I knew what he meant, but somehow it was that not-like-us that made me love Charlie more.

A.S. King

#9. Maybe if people weren't so careless, then nothing would need to be caged.

A.S. King

#10. Maybe if I hadn't been so hell-bent on not becoming my parents, I could have saved Charlie. Maybe I would have been his girlfriend. Maybe we could have gotten married and been happy, regardless of who our parents were and what they did to each other.

A.S. King

#11. This is where the runaway train started down the track. I was inside the dining car enjoying a plate of cookies or something. I didn't feel it then. But the train had been boarded on Saturday night when we drank the bat. And this was the beginning of its journey. Right here.

A.S. King

#12. ..love doesn't just show up and disappear, Not real love.

A.S. King

#13. By shooting the darkest areas three zones lighter, you turned a black, lifeless max black zone 0 into a zone 3.
I think, in life, most of us did this all the time.

A.S. King

#14. My toaster could have a soul,and the walnut grove to the east of my house could be just a bunch of trees or could be made from the atoms of Elvis or Mussolini.Why not?

A.S. King

#15. I'm not questioning *my* sexuality as much as I'm questioning the strict definitions and boxes of all *sexualities* and why we care so much about other people's intimate business.

A.S. King

#16. I have too much homework to watch M*A*S*H yet, so I settle down at the kitchen table and I face it.

A.S. King

#17. I am the barrier between the bullshit that falls from the sky and the humans who do not want bullshit on their pantsuits. In eight days of riding around, that's what I've discovered. It's raining bullshit. Probably all the time.

A.S. King

#18. Don't judge. I'm not getting drunk. I'm coping.

A.S. King

#19. EVERYONE deserves to be happy. But no one gets there by freaking out or sulking or running. So. Here's a tissue. Clean yourself up and start back at the beginning.

A.S. King

#20. I wish for world peace, because it's about as likely to occur anything else I can wish for.

A.S. King

#21. She talks about how she can't exercise because of the ailments-a bad back, sore knees, breathing difficulties-all caused by her weight gain.

A.S. King

#22. The ants say: aren't we all bleeding a little?

A.S. King

#23. Here's my using dickwad in a sentence. Greg is such a dickwad, he locks his car in the Pagoda Pizza parking lot. (No. That isn't a real Vocab word.)

A.S. King

#24. Only you can allow yourself to be angry.

A.S. King

#25. She said, 'This will be a time of asking questions and not rushing to answer them. A time of poking holes in your own theories. A time of thinking and not knowing.

A.S. King

#26. Today I am in control because I want to be. I have my fingers on the switch, but have lived a lifetime ignoring the control I have over my own world. Today is different.

A.S. King

#27. I don't have enough gross words in my gross vocabulary to describe how gross that gross thought is. Gross.

A.S. King

#28. Before Max Black, the future seemed boring and there wasn't much to think about. After Max Black, it was like I was looking at a negative, a stack of photographic paper, a jar full of emulsion, a paintbrush, and trays full of chemistry. There was now so much to do.
So much to do.

A.S. King

#29. That's the point. Blood is the point.
B-L-O-O-D I-S T-H-E P-O-I-N-T
If I could bleed out the Crapper into the ring, I'd do it.
If I could bleed out everything that's wrong with my life, I'd bleed until I was empty

A.S. King

#30. Ready for the big Day of Tolerance?" she asks. "Are you kidding?" I ask. "I'd rather poke my eyes out with dull forks. But we have to do what we have to do, right?" Kristina nods. "I say we tolerate the shit out of it." - Ask the Passengers

A.S. King

#31. We're all just making it up as we go along. No one really knows what they're doing.

A.S. King

#32. It's like Gone with the Wind or something. Strictly the 1939 brand of slapping. It only works because the slapper loves the slapee, and the slappee knows it.

A.S. King

#33. I don't smile. I have all these thoughts. Crazy thoughts. Like, on the one hand, I want to kiss her passionately, like they do in movies, and just paralyze her with the feeling of how much I want to take care of her

A.S. King

#34. I love vocab. It's like spelunking in a cave you've been in your whole life and discovering a thousand new tunnels.

A.S. King

#35. And so I went to my room and took a nap. A ten year long nap. The Gerald who didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do has taken a ten-year long nap.
The Gerald who had control over his life is awake again.
Good morning.
How did you sleep?

A.S. King

#36. I look at myself in the mirror and ask, What are your demands, Reality Boy?

A.S. King

#37. Lara Jones never fails to tell me that my reading about war makes me weird, but I can't get her fascination with reading abour fairies and wizards, so I guess that makes us even.

A.S. King

#38. I am as blank as a piece of white paper in a world with no pencils.

A.S. King

#39. I remember asking everyone else in my life for forgiveness, but I realize I never asked myself.

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#40. The trick is remembering that change is as easy as you make it. The trick is remembering that you are the boss of you.

A.S. King

#41. You're like an alcohol in my veins.

A.S. King

#42. The willow is green; flowers are red. The flower is not red; nor is the willow green.

A.S. King

#43. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. If we're supposed to ignore everything that's wrong with our lives, then I can't see how we'll ever make things right.

A.S. King

#44. It's like I'm a little me inside the big me and I'm holding an umbrella and the rain is bullshit and I am the rain and I am the bullshit.

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#45. I wish we could go back in time and climb trees together again. I love you, Vera. I always will.

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#46. Not living your life is just like killing yourself, only it takes longer.

A.S. King

#47. I demand a different childhood.
I demand a mother who cares.
I demand a do-over.

A.S. King

#48. Look, this is a loan. I don't know if love is something I will run out of one day. I don't know if I should be giving it all to you guys or not. Today, I feel like maybe I should have kept some for myself for days when no one else loves me.

A.S. King

#49. There is a moment in every photograph's life when it has been exposed but not developed. The light from the enlarger has shone through the negative and made its impression on the paper, but without the magic of developer, the paper will stay white and no one will ever see what that impression is.

A.S. King

#50. You're right. Sorry. So-don't you think they'd notice you more if you smiled and seemed happier?

A.S. King

#51. Is it okay to hate a dead kid? Even if you loved him once? Even if he was my best friend? Is it okay to hate him for being dead?

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#52. Loving Vera Dietz was the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

A.S. King

#53. And i wish I didn't have to lie so much. I don't think Frank Socrates would approve of all this lying.
I think Frank would want me to cause a lot more trouble than that.

A.S. King

#54. Tell that guy to kiss my white vivacious ass. He never met me.

A.S. King

#55. I don't even use the stupid shampoo.

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#56. You're not being dramatic. This hurts.

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#57. She's like a kindness ninja. Sneaking around in order to help people.

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#58. Mom walked out on us, remember? Because she never got over her own baggage, not because of you or me, right?

A.S. King

#59. Have you ever loved somebody?" I ask him.
"Yes."
"Does it always hurt so much?" I ask,
"When does it hurt?" he asks.
"All the time."
"I'm not sure that's love," he says, "You may be sick.

A.S. King

#60. And if any of you has a problem with any of it, then it's *your* problem. Being gay is hard enough without having to worry about your family being weird about it.

A.S. King

#61. I'd rather feel something for real than pretend it's not what it is.

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#62. Because it's true. Isn't that the only reason to ever say anything?

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#63. Fuck this shit!" I yell after him.
He nods and I can hear him as I walk away. "Fuck this shit!

A.S. King

#64. She looked into space a lot, didn't say much, and kissed my father when midnight came, as if she were punching a time card.

A.S. King

#65. No patience. No kisses. No hugs. Just a tweezers and some rubbing alcohol, and a stinging sensation that never goes away.

A.S. King

#66. I had so many things to say.
I had so many things to say

A.S. King

#67. I reminded myself that the one thing Jenny Flick couldn't buy, no matter what she used as currency, was a ticket to drive on the high road next to people like me.

A.S. King

#68. I'm not sure I can be what they want me to be. But I'll try.

A.S. King

#69. The pastor is saying something about how Charlie was a free spirit. He was and he wasn't. He was free because on the inside he was tied up in knots. He lived hard because on the inside he was dying. Charlie made inner conflict look delicious.

A.S. King

#70. Everything was windswept and octagonal and finger-combed.

A.S. King

#71. My eyelids get heavy, and i feel an instant urge to make today disappear by falling asleep until it's tomorrow. But i can't move.

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#72. My one regret was that I never photographed the bat before we drank it.

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#73. You is judgmental. With time, she will experience enough shit to free her own demons.

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#74. We all had our collective heads in the oven.

A.S. King

#75. School is the same as anything else. You do it because you're told to do it when you're little enough to listen. You continue because someone told you it was important. It's like you're a train in a tunnel. Graduation is the light at the end.

A.S. King

#76. Some of you have it ingrained in you. You weren't born with it. No baby has hate for anything. We were all babies once, right? This little guy doesn't care what country you were born in or what religion you might practice or how much you weigh or who you might love.

A.S. King

#77. I thought I could do this alone.
I demand not to do this alone.

A.S. King

#78. nothing about her pain is remotely original - and yet it still hurts

A.S. King

#79. Is love something that will always be available? Will it always be confined and untrustworthy like it feels today? Is there enough to go around? Am I wasting mine on strangers?

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#80. Maybe most other people are messed up, too. It just wasn't aired on TV.

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#81. Who made you eat bitch for lunch? Who poured you a tall bitch beer float? Who sprinkled bacon bitch on your salad?

A.S. King

#82. Humans don't trust anything-because that's their nature. Half of them have gut feelings they continually ignore. It's not their fault. Instinct rarely fits on the pages of a day planner, and even if it did, human beings would manage to complicate the hell out of it.

A.S. King

#83. I want to tell her that the only thing you get from walling yourself in is empty.

A.S. King

#84. Hey - the whole freaking world was built from delusional optimism and folly. What makes you so special? We're all just making it up as we go along. No one really knows what they're doing. Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking out of their butt.

A.S. King

#85. I guess when you believe the word of a complete liar, logic doesn't come into it.

A.S. King

#86. In nature, crying is okay. Waterfalls cry all the time.

A.S. King

#87. Blowing up isn't always external. It's not always easy to hear or see. Synapses fire every day in my brain. Thinking is just like exploding until it eventually scars you and you can't interact with people anymore. It's like one big, final detonation.

A.S. King

#88. It seems the older people get, the more shit they ignore. Or, like Dad, they pay attention to stuff that distracts them from the more important things that they're ignoring.

A.S. King

#89. They don't know what love is. Here they learn what hate is, and I am so sad that they might never know love because hate came first.

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#90. I have wrinkles. I am not tortured by them. I am no one special and so what if I have wrinkles? One day I will be no one special and be dead.

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#91. She launched the airplane and it caught a current and circled down toward the town, like a promise of something good.

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#92. The world is full of assholes. What are you doing to make sure you're not one of them?

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#93. I looked down mostly but when I dared look at a person, I could see their ancestors and descendants. I could see events in their past and their future. I could see their infinity, I guess.

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#94. They disappear and it echoes.
I'd really like to talk about it now

A.S. King

#95. I think $37 and no mother and no visits or phone calls is shitty interest.

A.S. King

#96. I am equal to a baby and to a hundred year old lady. I am equal to an airline pilot and a car mechanic. I am equal to you. You are equal to me. It's that universal.
Except that it's not.

A.S. King

#97. But I don't ask him anything, because he's driving with that weird fake-happy look on his face, as if he's about to chop me up into little pieces and feed me to a tiger.

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#98. The simplest answer is to act.

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#99. There is something magical about the world at night. Sitting at the dining room table, sipping a glass of iced tea, I can totally understand why Dad gets up so early. Minutes seem to last longer when the rest of the world is asleep.

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#100. Could I ever respect myself again if I stooped to their level?

A.S. King