We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead.

How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much. As cages go, it is a gilded one, but I shall not live well in it or any cage for that matter.

She shrieks above the din. "If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

She bestowed the blessing of a wild girl's lips.

Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really are

Taylor clapped three times for attention. "Ladies! Ladies! My stars! That's enough. Now. We all know Miss Arkansas's girls are fake, Miss Ohio's easier than making cereal, and Miss Montana's dress is something my blind meemaw would wear to bingo night." - "Beauty Queens

No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance. A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.