Quotes From "The Beginning Of Everything" By Robyn Schneider

Life is the tragedy, ' she said bitterly. 'You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. So we're all living tragedies, because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding. Robyn Schneider

We're living tragedies, just passing time 'til our funerals. Robyn Schneider

We have all been fooled into believing in people who are entirely imaginary--made-up prisoners in a hypothetical panopticon. But the point isn't whether or not you believe in imaginary people; it's whether or not you want to." I think I'll stick with reality, " I said, handing Cassidy back her phone. She stared at it, and then me, disappointed. "I'd think you of all people would want to escape."" Imaginary prisoners are still prisoners. . Robyn Schneider

I still think that everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a singular tragic encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. That moment is the catalyst - the first step in the equation. But knowing the first step will get you nowhere - it's what comes after that determines the result. Robyn Schneider

And I realized that there's a big difference between deciding to leave and knowing where to go. Robyn Schneider

Words could betray you if you chose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many. Jokes could be grandly miscalculated, or stories deemed boring, and I'd learned early on that my sense of humor and ideas about what sorts of things were fascinating didn't exactly overlap with my friends'. Robyn Schneider

You see? You're just figuring it out now, but I discovered a long time ago that the smarter you are, the more tempting it is to just let people imagine you. We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed. Robyn Schneider

I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable. Robyn Schneider

You're funny.' Phoebe passed me the last chocolate cupcake. 'And I always thought your friends were laughing over their own farts.'' Ninety percent of Eastwood's male population laughs over their own farts. Present company excluded, naturally. Robyn Schneider

The world tends toward chaos, you know, " Cassidy said. You could too. Just write down a made up name, or even a fictional character. And the next person who finds this geocache, it's as though things really hapened that way. You have to at least allow for the possibility of it. Robyn Schneider

How many beers do y'all think it takes before one internationally scientist turns to another and says, 'Dude, bet you twenty bucks I can levitate a frog with a magnet?' ' Sam drawled. Robyn Schneider

Fine! You guys can all be beautiful snowflakes! I'm gonna go over here and be an awkward snowflake! Robyn Schneider

Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could only be moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary--a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. Robyn Schneider

Steinbeck wrote about the tide pools and how profoundly they illustrate the interconnectedness of all things, folded together in an ever-expanding universe that's bound by the elastic string of time. He said that one should look from the tide pool to the stars, and then back again in wonder. Robyn Schneider

Why do they even call it that, "saving yourself"? Like we need to be rescued from sex? It's not like virgins spend their whole lives engaged in the sacred ceremony of "being saved" from intercourse. Robyn Schneider

And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. Robyn Schneider

And that was when I saw what Cassidy had done to herself: the gold and red ribbing on her sweater-vest, the matching stripes on her tie, the gray uniform skirt, and the navy blazer draped over her arm..." Is that a Gryffindor tie?" I asked." And an official Harry Potter Merchandise sweater-vest, " she confirmed smugly. Robyn Schneider

Still here, Faulkner?" Luke sneered." Still doing that terrible impression of Draco Malfoy?" I asked. Robyn Schneider

Not at all, I just don't understand how the Arch Alchemist became mortal all of a sudden."" Because he split his soul into seven pieces and hid them all over Justice City, " Toby retorted." You turned our comic book into a Harry Potter rip-off?" I spluttered. Robyn Schneider

Maybe I’d already guessed that the physics of us didn’t defy any laws of gravity, and with her, there was always an equal and opposite reaction. Robyn Schneider

To Cassidy, the panopticon wasn't a metaphor. It was the greatest failing on everything she was, a prison she had built for herself out of an inability to appear anything less than perfect. And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. She would always be confined by what everyone expected of her because she was too afraid and too unwilling to correct our imperfect imaginings. . Robyn Schneider

Everyone's life, not matter how unremarkable, has a singular tragic encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. That moment is the catalyst - the first step in the equation. But knowing the first step will get you nowhere - it's what comes after that determines the result. Robyn Schneider