12 Quotes & Sayings By Meg Howrey

Meg Howrey is the New York Times bestselling author of novels for adults and young adults. Her first novel, The Summer I Turned Pretty, was a New York Times Bestseller and won the 2009 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. Her second novel for adults, When She Was Bad, was also a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Award finalist, and her novel The Thing About Love was named one of the best books of 2011 by The Washington Post, NPR, Slate, and Glamour. Meg has been a writer since high school; she earned her Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

If only we could crawl inside our dreams and live...
1
If only we could crawl inside our dreams and live there. Why can't I live inside my dream? Meg Howrey
She feels a little sad. Is she sad? Helen considers...
2
She feels a little sad. Is she sad? Helen considers an alternative: She is dehydrated. Meg Howrey
3
Everyone is in pain. Most people think pain in massage means something is happening, and if they can endure it, they will be improved, but sometimes the only thing pain means is pain. It a very easy mistake to make, though. She’d refused for the longest time to get therapy or take any psychoactive drugs because she’d felt that the “darkness” was necessary, not just for her as an actor, but as a human being. You didn’t have to feel slightly terrible all the time, as it turns out. Her only worry now was that slightly terrible was not a flaw in her chemistry, but an appropriate response to being the kind of person that she was. “You’re very hard on yourself, ” Luke said. “Can you imagine the kind of person that I’d be if I wasn’t hard on myself?” she said back. Luke should be sympathetic. He was hoping to improve the human race, and it would be hard to get there if the human race thought it was already fantastic, thanks very much. Well, she could still go dark, if she needed to, she could go dark right now. Yesterday she had done Terror. She’d done Fear and Dejection and Remorse. And because she had done Remorse as fully as a person could do it, she knew that she hadn’t ever experienced that kind of pure Remorse before. What she’d felt in the past was polluted Remorse, because half the time she was sorry she was also privately resentful and building a case about why the actions that had led to Remorse could be justified. Meg Howrey
4
You shouldn't ask for forgiveness. Because if you ask someone to forgive you, and they do, then that's twice that you've taken something from them. First the betrayal, and then the absolution. Meg Howrey
5
There are things you do when you are a teenager, or a dancer, or just a girl, I guess. You cut your food up in special ways, or you cut yourself, or paper dolls. You pretend that there is an invisible audience watching you all the time, and you do things to impress them or pretend that they didn't see what you just did because their live video feed was interrupted somehow. You steal things or tell lies or speak to strangers in a Russian accent. You have sex with someone you love, or with someone who gets you really drunk. You lie to your parents, your boyfriend, yourself, your therapist. You cheat on your homework or do other people's homework for money. You get up, you take class, you rehearse, you perform, you go to bed. How do you decided which of these things are truly crazy and which are just being alive? . Meg Howrey
6
I am here. I am in the present tense. I'm not always here, and sometimes here is a very difficult place. Sometimes it is a labyrinth, or a Minotaur, or a rope I can neither let go of nor follow. It's hard to find the right words, but I guess I would say that it's something like feeling the floor. And that it is my privilege to feel it. Meg Howrey
7
Although pride and obsession can feel like love, I guess. Meg Howrey
8
Keep making noise, I prayed, laughing. Bang drums. Clamor and ring bells for I cannot stand to hear the tired beating of this almost heart. Meg Howrey
9
It's a moment to learn. This was the thing about miscalculations, errors, and mistakes. You admitted them, you used them as teachable moments, and then you moved on. You didn't forget, but you didn't dwell. Meg Howrey
10
I made the sympathetic face, and the interested face, and even the impressed face. I did not say, 'In the name of all that is holy, cease this incessant drivel, you pretentious ass. Meg Howrey
11
When you step from the wings onto the stage you go from total blackness to a blinding hot glare. After a moment you adjust, but there is that moment. like being inside lightning. Meg Howrey