“Sometimes, you really didn’t have to lift a finger to get exactly what you wanted. Sometimes, all you had to do was sit back and do nothing.”
―
Ashley Winstead,
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“It turns out the real you is a quilt, made up of the light and the dark. The life you’ve lived in sunshine and your shadow life, stretching underneath the surface of your mind like a deep underwater world, exerting invisible power. You are a living, breathing story made up of the moments in time you cherish, all strung together, and those you hide. The moments that seem lost. Until the day they’re not.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“Wanting is dangerous. The less you want, the safer you'll be.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“I wanted them to see perfection. I ached for it in the deep, dark core of me: to be so good I left other people in the dust.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“But no matter how much I tried to cling to the shining jewels of my accomplishments, it never took long before my shadow list surfaced. Everything I’d ever failed at, every second place, every rejection, mounting, mounting, mounting, until the suspicion became unbearable. (...) My life was a narrative I couldn’t parse, full of conflicting evidence.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“I’d pretended I was fine, pretended I’d moved on, but the truth was, the past was still open inside me, like a half-cracked door, because it was a raw, unhealed wound.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“In ten years,” Heather said slowly, “you’re not even going to remember the things that seem important now. You’re going to have totally different priorities. I bet you’ll look back and laugh at everything that feels so dramatic now.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“If only it was always like this. If beauty was purely a power and not a target, a vulnerability that could draw the wolves and put you at their mercy.” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“It was all so clear now, so terrifyingly obvious. I was the villain; I always had been. It explained everything—why I’d never gotten what I wanted, no matter how hard I’d tried. It wasn’t because life was unfair, or not working the way it should. I’d had it backwards my whole life: I wasn’t the princess, set upon by misfortune; I was the witch. And life had unfolded the way it was supposed to, giving me what I deserved.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“It was strange, really, how your entire life could change just like that, from one second to the next. And there was no fireworks show, no dramatic tilting of the world on its axis to signify how everything had suddenly flipped upside down, and nothing would ever be the same.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“there’s no such thing as an objective observer. That’s why stories are powerful. If you’re listening, you’re part of it.” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“You’re a narcissist. You’ve always been vain and petty and ego-driven. You have serious daddy issues and a fucked-up dating history—including, most notably, with me. You always take the safe route because you’re scared. Case in point, your lame corporate job. You try so goddamn hard to make everything perfect because you’re convinced that’s the only way you’ll deserve—what? Love? Life, even? And as far as the world is concerned, you pushed my college roommate out a window to his death.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“What did you call yourself when you’d taken an active role in your own suffering? When your hands weren’t clean, when there wasn’t a single part of you that was, especially not your mind, all those deep, dark corners?” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“Even now, to this day, I think you were the love of my life. You were always talking about your dreams, back in college. Harvard this and DC that. Well, you want to know what my dream was? You. A real best friend.” My eyes burned. Caro’s voice softened. “I would have done anything for you.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“A reader, then.” He eyed me. “Dangerous quality in a girl.” ― Ashley Winstead, Midnight Is the Darkest Hour
“I’m telling you upfront. I need more. I need you over and over. So this is your out. Take it. Otherwise you’re mine, the way it should have been” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“The law is nuanced and complicated, and I like nuanced and complicated.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“A woman who wanted was an ugly thing. I knew it made me childish and vulnerable. My whole life had taught me that lesson. But still. For one moment, laid out on the grass, all my ruined, pointless, pent-up wanting was too great to contain—” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“Under the surface, in the cold, in the salt, swallowed by waves, I pressed my eyes shut, letting myself sink. And in that moment a wild wishing came over me. I wanted to stay here, submerged forever. Above the surface, all the days of my life were waiting like a promise. There was nothing but a blank slate, and anything goes, and what if. My life could mean anything, I could become anyone, as long as I didn’t break surface, as long as I stayed here, suspended, in this beautiful, infinite now.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“It turns out the real you is a quilt, made up of the light and the dark. The life you’ve lived in sunshine and your shadow life, stretching underneath the surface of your mind like a deep underwater world, exerting invisible power. You are a living, breathing story made up of the moments in time you cherish, all strung together, and those you hide. The moments that seem lost. Until the day they’re not.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“Wanting is dangerous. The less you want, the safer you'll be.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“I wanted them to see perfection. I ached for it in the deep, dark core of me: to be so good I left other people in the dust.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“But no matter how much I tried to cling to the shining jewels of my accomplishments, it never took long before my shadow list surfaced. Everything I’d ever failed at, every second place, every rejection, mounting, mounting, mounting, until the suspicion became unbearable. (...) My life was a narrative I couldn’t parse, full of conflicting evidence.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“I’d pretended I was fine, pretended I’d moved on, but the truth was, the past was still open inside me, like a half-cracked door, because it was a raw, unhealed wound.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“In ten years,” Heather said slowly, “you’re not even going to remember the things that seem important now. You’re going to have totally different priorities. I bet you’ll look back and laugh at everything that feels so dramatic now.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“If only it was always like this. If beauty was purely a power and not a target, a vulnerability that could draw the wolves and put you at their mercy.” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“It was all so clear now, so terrifyingly obvious. I was the villain; I always had been. It explained everything—why I’d never gotten what I wanted, no matter how hard I’d tried. It wasn’t because life was unfair, or not working the way it should. I’d had it backwards my whole life: I wasn’t the princess, set upon by misfortune; I was the witch. And life had unfolded the way it was supposed to, giving me what I deserved.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“It was strange, really, how your entire life could change just like that, from one second to the next. And there was no fireworks show, no dramatic tilting of the world on its axis to signify how everything had suddenly flipped upside down, and nothing would ever be the same.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“there’s no such thing as an objective observer. That’s why stories are powerful. If you’re listening, you’re part of it.” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“You’re a narcissist. You’ve always been vain and petty and ego-driven. You have serious daddy issues and a fucked-up dating history—including, most notably, with me. You always take the safe route because you’re scared. Case in point, your lame corporate job. You try so goddamn hard to make everything perfect because you’re convinced that’s the only way you’ll deserve—what? Love? Life, even? And as far as the world is concerned, you pushed my college roommate out a window to his death.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“What did you call yourself when you’d taken an active role in your own suffering? When your hands weren’t clean, when there wasn’t a single part of you that was, especially not your mind, all those deep, dark corners?” ― Ashley Winstead, The Last Housewife
“Even now, to this day, I think you were the love of my life. You were always talking about your dreams, back in college. Harvard this and DC that. Well, you want to know what my dream was? You. A real best friend.” My eyes burned. Caro’s voice softened. “I would have done anything for you.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“A reader, then.” He eyed me. “Dangerous quality in a girl.” ― Ashley Winstead, Midnight Is the Darkest Hour
“I’m telling you upfront. I need more. I need you over and over. So this is your out. Take it. Otherwise you’re mine, the way it should have been” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“The law is nuanced and complicated, and I like nuanced and complicated.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“A woman who wanted was an ugly thing. I knew it made me childish and vulnerable. My whole life had taught me that lesson. But still. For one moment, laid out on the grass, all my ruined, pointless, pent-up wanting was too great to contain—” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
“Under the surface, in the cold, in the salt, swallowed by waves, I pressed my eyes shut, letting myself sink. And in that moment a wild wishing came over me. I wanted to stay here, submerged forever. Above the surface, all the days of my life were waiting like a promise. There was nothing but a blank slate, and anything goes, and what if. My life could mean anything, I could become anyone, as long as I didn’t break surface, as long as I stayed here, suspended, in this beautiful, infinite now.” ― Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
