Noteworthy Quotes

“It was impossible to feel alone in a room full of favorite books. I had the sense that they knew me personally, that they'd read me cover to cover as I'd read them.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Isaac was panic over whether to call and the murmured admission that the world was too big and too furious and too much to make sense. He wasn't about to patch my doubts and make me whole; he wasn't going to be my cornerstone; he wasn't the blanket stretched taut to catch me when I fell. He was this nervous kid, playing with matches and dancing around gasoline, and I was this nervous kid, shying back from the firelight, and we were here nervous together, acting like we had it figured out - as if we hadn't already learned what it looked like to see each other pretending.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It's too simple to hate the people who have doorways where you have walls”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It was a weird day if figuring out you were bisexual made up the least of your mental turmoil.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Sometimes, good intentions couldn't do a thing except make you feel less alone, and sometimes that was enough.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Sometimes you want people to -- not even put you first, or anything, but to just think about you a little, you know?”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It wasn't enlightenment to live like you had no history and no consequences. The world wasn't just made out of instants -- it was made out of plans, too, and the ability to learn from your mistakes.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Life's not a Greek tragedy.'
After a long second, I shrugged. 'I mean, if you didn't sleep with your mom by mistake, that's fine, but don't go around acting all superior to the rest of us.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“If you can't fix it, leave it behind.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“I meant to ask Erik to say something to Victoria, to follow what had happened at the dance, but I couldn't settle on the right words. An apology for fleeing, sure, but then what? 'I only think of you as a friend'? 'I think we should see other people'? 'It's not you, it's the fact that I'm secretly a girl who sacrificed a foot and a half of perfectly good hair to the dark gods of a capella'?”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Man up. What a cleverly disguised way to say shut up. Shut up, or fight back, or you deserved what you got.

Everything was growing clearer. So this was why guys had such an issue backing down—why Mama fought for the last word in every argument, why Erik wanted revenge for every prank, why Isaac said sorry like it was brine on his tongue. I finally understood it.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“There was something alienating about being on scholarship, a tense mixture of gratefulness and otherness. You're talented, the money said, and we want you here. Still, it had the twang of You were, are, and always will be different.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“You didn't want to assume a guy was into you, but you had to have a plan lined up just in case, because what if he sprang feelings on you out of nowhere in a guerrilla attack an you were unprepared to deflect them in a tactful way? Also, it made a shitty foundation for a friendship, the constant worry that someone would stop caring about you overnight if you didn't want to date them. It was all very stressful.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It was impossible to feel alone in a room full of favorite books. I had the sense that they knew me personally, that they’d read me cover to cover as I’d read them.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“In theater, that's the whole thing about Greek tragedy. You take the audience through the—like, the realest shit, the tearing out the eyes or the worst possible thing, and then on the other side it's like coming out of the boiling water and you're cleaning."

"Life's not a Greek tragedy."

After a long second, I shrugged. "I mean, if you didn't sleep with your mom by mistake, that's fine, but don't go around acting all superior to the rest of us.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“I wish I could tell who was gentle all the way down, and who turned to sharp edges the deeper you got.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Beauty was beauty and want was want and a beating heart was a beating heart.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“The only thing worse than arguing with someone who was clearly wrong was arguing with someone who was clearly right" -Jordan/Julian”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It took being your own to want somebody else" -Jordan/Julian”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It was the most basic trust, expecting someone to be himself" -Jordan/Julian”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Kindness had no gender, had no race or age or category" -Jordan/Julian”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It's impossible not to love the feeling of owning something and belonging to it in return" -Jordan”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Have you ever lied for three months?”

“I don’t think I could.”

I half-smiled. “Must be weird having morals or whatever.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Three or four times, I'd had what I chalked up as weirdly intense friend-crushes: I'd meet a girl, get flustered, get fascinated, and for months, I'd want only to be around her. Where was the line though? Did I want to be around her, did I want to be her, or did I want to be with her?”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“It was downright depressing, the lengths it took to feel special when you wrote yourself out on paper. All As? Who cared? That was the standard here. Some shows, some activities? Big deal. How were you changing the world?

Sometimes, when I wasn't too busy, I wondered why we had to change the world so early.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Monday morning was the worst possible time to have an existential crisis, I decided on a Monday morning, while having an existential crisis.

Ideal crisis hours were obviously Friday afternoons, because you had a full weekend afterward to turn back into a person. You could get away with Saturday if you were efficient about it. Mondays, though—on Mondays, you had to size up the tsunami of work that loomed in the near distance and cobble together a survival strategy. There was no time for the crisis cycle: 1) teary breakdown, 2) self-indulgent wallowing, 3) questioning whether life had meaning, and 4) limping toward recovery. Four nifty stages. Like the water cycle, but soul-crushing.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy