63 Quotes & Sayings By Nina Lacour

Nina LaCour is an author, playwright, journalist, and activist. She is the author of I Love Dick, The Last Black Unicorn, and We Were the Lucky Ones . She has written for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Rolling Stone , Bookforum , and The Paris Review . Her first book of essays was published by Harper's Magazine in 2013 Read more

Her latest work is the critically acclaimed memoir I Love Dick: A Novel .

I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please...
1
I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend. Nina Lacour
2
There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever. Nina Lacour
You might be looking for reasons but there are no...
3
You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons. Nina Lacour
The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they...
4
The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they aren't larger than life. They are life. Nina Lacour
5
It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once. Nina Lacour
The trouble with denial is that when the truth comes,...
6
The trouble with denial is that when the truth comes, you aren't ready. Nina Lacour
Dear today, i spend all of you pretending i'm okay...
7
Dear today, i spend all of you pretending i'm okay when i'm not, pretending i'm happy when i'm not, pretending about everything to everyone. Nina Lacour
8
I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet. Nina Lacour
9
There are still Ava Maddoxes to find and sets to create and girls to kiss and colleges to attend. It's possible that someday I will hear a patsy Cline song and the heartbreak will barely register. It will be some distant, buried feeling. I won't remember how much it once hurt. Nina Lacour
He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He...
10
He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much. Nina Lacour
I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets...
11
I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them. Nina Lacour
12
It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close. Nina Lacour
You're never going to be ready
13
You're never going to be ready"..." Don't you see that? You have to forget about ready. If you don't, you're always going to run away Nina Lacour
I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't...
14
I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed her. Nina Lacour
15
How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust. Nina Lacour
This is what I want so don't be sad.
16
This is what I want so don't be sad. Nina Lacour
No,
17
No, " I say. "I didn't know that, " and as I say it I feel flooded with bitterness at all the things Ingrid kept secret from me. Nina Lacour
18
I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment in your life, and think, "Soon this will be over". But I understand more now. About the way life works. Nina Lacour
That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for...
19
That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't. Nina Lacour
20
Friendship is about more than facts. It's about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don't. But I guess it's also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don't end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they've become. Nina Lacour
People take one another for granted
21
People take one another for granted Nina Lacour
22
It's about what I know is true. Because I'm looking at this bright red storm of color on a canvas, at all my delicate lines and passionate brushstrokes. I'm looking at something so urgent and true, so far beyond what I thought I was capable of making. Nina Lacour
23
I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that's the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty. Nina Lacour
24
He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, 'O, teach me how I should forget to think! ' I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare. Nina Lacour
25
And then we get new homes that we make for ourselves. Nina Lacour
26
I want to confess. I thought that her story was comprised of scenes. I thought the tragedy could be glamorous and her grief could be undone by a sunnier future. I thought we could pinpoint dramatic events on a time line and call it a life. But I was wrong. Nina Lacour
27
In the distance are the lights of town. People must be finishing their workdays, picking up their kids, figuring out dinner. They're talking to one another in easy voices about things of great significance and things that don't mean much. The distance between us and all of that living feels insurmountable. Nina Lacour
28
The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever. Nina Lacour
29
The sun stopped shining for me is all. Nina Lacour
30
Whenever Ingrid and I got out of the suburbs, into Berkeley or San Francisco, and saw how other people lived, Ingrid would cry at the smallest of things- a little boy walking home by himself, a discarded cardboard sign saying HUNGRY PLEASE HELP. She would snap a picture, and by the time she lowered her camera, tears would already be falling. I always felt kind of guilty that I didn't feel as sad as she did, but now, watching Dylan, I think that's probably a good thing. I mean, you see a million terrible things every day, on the news and in the paper, and in real life. I'm not saying that it's stupid to feel sad, just that it would be impossible to let everything get to you and still get some sleep at night. Nina Lacour
31
There are degrees of obsession, of awareness, of grief, of insanity. Nina Lacour
32
My life is just waiting for you to get started. Nina Lacour
33
The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal . Nina Lacour
34
All I have is a life's worth of school days. What came before school I can't remember. You can only sketch so many desks and teachers and chalkboards. You can only come home to so many dinners and homework assignments and nights of taking the garbage out. You can only go to so many museum field trips before you start to wonder, Is this it? Nina Lacour
35
If only I had something to take the edge off the loneliness. If only lonely were a more accurate word. It should sound much less pretty. Nina Lacour
36
It's a dark place, not knowing. It's difficult to surrender to. But I guess it's where we live most of the time. I guess it's where we all live, so maybe it doesn't have to be so lonely. Maybe I can settle into it, cozy up to it, make a home inside uncertainty. Nina Lacour
37
My room is so quiet and empty it hurts. Nina Lacour
38
There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can't. Nina Lacour
39
And I want to tell you about everything but I can't because I couldn't stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me and think that I'm normal. I just really need that from you. Nina Lacour
40
Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me. Nina Lacour
41
My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling. Nina Lacour
42
I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered. . Nina Lacour
43
When the bell rings, and lunch is over, I decide to come back here tomorrow, and the next day. I tell myself it really isn’t that bad. Nina Lacour
44
When you live in LA and work in the movies, you experience the collapse of some of that fantasy. You know that the eyes glow like that because of lights placed at a specific angle, and you see the actresses up close and, yes, they are beautiful, but they are human size and imperfect like the rest of us. Nina Lacour
45
Dignity is overrated. You know what trumps dignity? Kissing. Nina Lacour
46
I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I’ve been punched in both eyes. I can’t talk about the day that follows that. Nina Lacour
47
This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes. Nina Lacour
48
I can't muster a smile. Even with the knowledge that it's dark outside and light up here, it's hard to believe that he can see us. We should be invisible. We are so alone. Mabel and I are standing side by side, but we can't even see each other. In the distance are the lights of town. People must be finishing their workdays, picking up their kids, figuring out dinner. They're talking to one another in easy voices about things of great significance and things that don't mean much. The distance between us and all of that living feels insurmountable. Nina Lacour
49
We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could ever fit inside us. Nina Lacour
50
We take a last look out of the window at the night, and I send a silent wish to everyone out there for this kind of warmth. Nina Lacour
51
It isn't the happy ending that Ingrid and I have dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and had you close Nina Lacour
52
I'm sorry I left without telling you, " she says. "I wasn't ready. I wanted it so much, and I wasn't ready for that. Nina Lacour
53
I leaned over the sink, closer to my reflection, and stare at myself hard. I don't know what I see. I don't even know what I want to see. Nina Lacour
54
We were nostalgic for a time that wasn't yet over. Nina Lacour
55
You've never told him", Violet says. It's not a question. It's obvious." I tell him all the time - I just make sure it's never when he's listening. I say it when he's in the other room, or when he's asleep, or when the music's really loud. Sometimes he asks me what I just said. And I tell him never mind. Or I make up something else, something that isn't 'I love you'. Nina Lacour
56
I hate that word. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic Nina Lacour
57
...I think that people who make judgements about other people they don't even know are shallow, and people who start rumors are shallow, and I really don't care what shallow people say about me. Nina Lacour
58
It's the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy. It's what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. I'm seeing her for the first time. Not Ava Garden Wilder, the rags-to-riches granddaughter of Clyde Jones. Not a tragic, romantic heroine. Just Ava.And I am utterly in love. Nina Lacour
59
Don't you want to kiss me?' she asks. She smiles just a little, a hopeful, sweet smile, but buried in it is that confidence that slays me. Nina Lacour
60
We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. they tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Nina Lacour
61
We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Remember about death and suffering and the complexities of living. Remember what it is like to love someone. Remember how it is to be loved. Remember what you feel in this moment. Remember this. Remember this. . Nina Lacour
62
There’s still this thing that happens after you break up withsomeone. It barely takes any time to work. All you have to dois continue with your life, and then when you find yourself in aroom with her again it’s as if you’re a different person. Maybeyour posture is a little more confident. Maybe your laughter islouder. You’re wearing perfume she’s never smelled before andyou have a new way of pinning back your hair. You don’t evenhave to say anything because your presence alone is enough tosay Look at who I am without you. . Nina Lacour