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Safe, I decided, didn't leave much room for fun.

Justina Chen

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Justina Chen
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Novelist
Writer
Justina Chen
Justina Chen Headley
Didn
Much
Decided
Safe
Room
Rooms
Leave
Fun

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I preferred my brand of beauty where Norah was more beautiful than any bimbette, and Mom was beautiful whether sized extra-small or extra-large. Where Peony could look at herself in the mirror and murmur, wow, look at me. Just look at me.
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Maybe we don't have the same definition of about what's beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.
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To dream is to starve doubt, feed hope.
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If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.
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Getting lost is just another way of saying 'going exploring.
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My confidence was of the hothouse variety, carefully cultivated under highly regulated conditions. One wrong look, one mean comment, and my facade would wither.
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Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.
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The pressure of his touch through my jacket and my sweater was more assurance than any promise ever made to me. It was a touch that said, I have your back and I am here for you. If a girl wasn't careful, she could fall in love with a touch like that.
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Wait! What? I lowered my cup hastily, wondering if maybe there was a stray hair, or worse, a newly boiled bug inside my cup. You got to smell it first. It's the proper way to cup coffee. Cup coffee? Taste it. What? Are you the coffee police or something?
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But even quashed rebellions leave us different. Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.
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From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.
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Adventure in life is good consistency in coffee even better.
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Let the glossy spreads have their heart-stopping, head-turning kind of beauty. Give me the heart-filling beauty instead. Jolie laide, that's what I would choose. Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.
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I hated roses. I hated them for being so trite, so clichéd, a default, all-purpose flower that said I love you, I'm sorry, and get well soon. Give me peonies and tulips, orchids or gardenia. Those were flowers with character.
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You raze the old to raise the new.
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No power was total, no power permanent, no power absolute.
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What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect?
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I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?
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There is a time to study a map passionately, obsessively. To see where you've gone, where others have gone before you. To commit to memory every obstacle, every danger. Shakespeare had a term for this obsession: mappery. But there is a time, too, when you say, come dragons. I challenge you to find me.
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A pathfinder's job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you're hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.
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