...a deadline should not prevent you from writing, but writing will help prevent you from missing your deadline. Then write a word. Then remind yourself of that again. And then write another and hey, look at you! You’re spitting in that deadline’s eye.

— Courtney Summers

Because you made it here on a lot less" he says, and he has no idea how on the mark he is.

— Courtney Summers

Behind the building was a field and when the potpourri scent of her cleaner made me sneeze, I went outside. There were calves there, these sweet things that watched me with less interest than I watched them. There was this raggedy one, sitting in the middle of the field, its mother nearby. I didn’t realize it was sick until it tried to get up and it couldn’t. It kept trying, and it couldn’t and then, eventually—it didn’t. After a while, a truck drove in. A man and a boy got out, looked it over while its mother stood close. It was dead, the calf. Dead and too heavy to load into the truck bed, so they tied a rope around its neck, tied the other end to the truck and dragged it off the field like that. Its mother watched until it disappeared and when it was out of view, she called for it. Just kept calling for it so long after it was gone. Sometimes I feel something like that, between my mom and me. That I’m the daughter she keeps calling for so long after she’s been gone.

— Courtney Summers

Car's right. She should be scared. Everything's out of her hands now. All the things coming Ava's way they won't be able to control, things she won't always ask for because she's a girl. She doesn't even know how hard it's going to be yet, but she will, because all girls find out. And I know it's going to be hard for Ava in ways I've never had to or will ever have to experience, and I want to apologize to her now, before she finds out, like I wish someone had to me. Because maybe it would be better if we all got apologized to first. Maybe it would hurt less, expecting to be hurt.

— Courtney Summers

Dad was thirsty, not given to great displays of affection, like his father and his father's father before him. A long line of self-indulgent men who couldn't give love but lived to take it, which isn't the same as receiving it. They were all in so much pain and that's always the perfect excuse.

— Courtney Summers

Her eyes widen, and she shoves me back and then there's a space between us, enough to paralyze me with all the things I could do to her next. I could raise my hand and hit her in the face or bring my knee into her stomach, take a fistful of her hair and rip it out of her skull. You don't get to do this when you're a girl, so when the opportunity for violence finally presents itself, I want all of it at once.

— Courtney Summers

He was planning to rape me -""Why would he ever -""Because he knew he'd get away with it.

— Courtney Summers

I am so sad. I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts. Furthermore, I shift, restless, but it doesn’t help. It’s like—time. All this time in here is on me, has its hooks in me. Maybe if I sleep more, I’ll wake up, and I’ll feel different, but I can’t. The storm is really happening now, and it makes the room feel emptier. Makes me feel emptier.

— Courtney Summers

I elbow my way through the mass of people to get to my locker because there's something immensely satisfying about the toughest part of my arm connecting with the softest part of everyone else.

— Courtney Summers

If I can do things right, I don't see why everyone else can't.

— Courtney Summers