Libba Bray, Beauty Queens
27 quotes
"I've had so many bikini waxes, I cry every time I see a Popsicle stick."
"You set fire to my house, killed my family, and ate my dog. But steal my boyfriend? That's a step too far."
"Because 'You're perfect just the way you are,' is what your guidance counselor says. And she's an alcoholic."
"Agent Jones held Sinjin’s face in his hands. “I’m going to make balloon animals. People need balloon animals.”“How right you are, strange delusional man,” Sinjin said."
"New Maxi-Pad Pets. Accessories for your period.Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes andin your pants."
"Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion."
"Please, I'm a transgender former boy-bander. You think I don't know how to defend myself?"
"Brought to you by The Corporation: In your homes and in your pants."
"Because the pure girls get rescued." Mary Lou felt something she didn't let herself feel often. She was well and truly pissed off. "Why do girls have to be all pure and innocent and good? Why don't guys have to be?"
"It had the word bitches in it, which is perfectly fine to use if you're a rapper or a director making a movie about career women, but not if you're a teen girl talking about her homies.""Good point, Petra. We know that young ladies of the teen persuasion do not use these indelicate words. Nor do they have thoughts about sex, masturbation, violence, being competitive, or farting."
"It was so hard to feel safe in the world when you were a girl."
"What did I do to make Mommy leave?”“You didn’t do anything. This isn’t your fault.”“Then why?” she’d wailed.“I don’t know,” her daddy had said, and he looked so sad.“It isn’t fair!”“No, it isn’t, baby. Not by a mile. The world’s only as fair as you can make it. Takes a lot of fight. A lot of fight. But if you stay in here, in your own little cave, that’s one less fighter on the side of fair."
"The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were suppose to fall at their feet? Unacceptable."
"Petra turned to her. "Everybody lies about who they are. Name one person here who isn't doing that and I will drop out right now!"Shanti felt that snake of truth coil around her legs, threatening to squeeze. "I didn't mean...""No one ever does." Petra said, shoving the baton back at Shanti."
"What kind of person doesn't let you have gummi bears?"
"I’m not that kind of Indian,” Shanti said, her practiced smile never leaving her face, though it faltered just a bit, and in that slight wobble was something hard and angry, something that looked like centuries of colonial oppression boiling up into an I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-in-this-pageant-and-then-take-over-all-your-beauty-out-sourcing-needs hatred."
"I’m a wild girl from a cursed line of women. I paw at the ground and run under the moon. I like the feel of my own body. I’m not a slut or a nympho or someone who’s just asking for it. And if I talk too loud it’s just that I’m trying to be heard."
"So I slap on that smile and pretend everything’s okay even though it’s not."
"You can’t believe how bleeding scary the sea is! There’s, like, whales and storms and shit! They don’t bloody tell you that!"
"Weren't you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren't you supposed to be saving yourself?" Shanti asked. "Yeah," Mary Lou answered. "And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present."
"...There's an -or- in -whore- because you always have a choice to respect your body and say no."
"...I think we should find some kind of shelter; a cave or something.""I don't want to do that! What if there's like, a creature living in the cave?" Tiara said. "Seriously, I saw this show once where these people were stranded on an island and there were these other people who were sort of crazy-slash-bad and there was this polar bear creature running around.""What happened?" Miss Ohio asked."I don't know. My parents got divorced in the middle of season two and we lost our TiVo."
"Miss New Mexico stared, dumbfounded. "Stand out? Stand out? I have a freaking tray stuck in my forehead!" She broke into fresh sobs.Taylor clapped for attention. "Miss New Mexico, let's not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don't even have airline trays. We have a lot to be grateful for."
"We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans."
"I've been thinking about that book about the boys who crash on the island....Lord of the Flies what about it....You know how you said it wasn't a true measure of humanity since there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls...Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are."