Because 'You're perfect just the way you are,' is what your guidance counselor says. And she's an alcoholic.

Just because you're funny doesn't mean you get to be cruel.

When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.

In school, they would tell you that life wouldn’t come to you; you had to go out and make it your own. But when it came to love, the message for girls seemed to be this: Don’t. Don’t go after what you want. Wait. Wait to be chosen, as if only in the eye of another could one truly find value. The message was confusing and infuriating. It was a shell game with no actual pea under the rapidly moving cups.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.

Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder?

We're still expected to color within the lines of accepted femininity, and women who step out of those lines are usually attacked, whether verbally or physically.