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Hilary Thayer Hamann Quotes

When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you re taken into life's severest confidence. You are undeceived.

When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you re taken into life's severest confidence. You are undeceived.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Children, Taken, Parent
Hilary Thayer Hamann (2011). “Anthropology of an American Girl”, p.74, Hachette UK

And loneliness. I should say something of loneliness. The panic, the sweeping hysteria that comes not when you are without others, but when you are without yourself, adrift. I should describe the filthy province of mind, the blighted district inside, the place so crowded you cannot raise the eyelids of your eyes. Your shoulders are drawn and your head has fallen and your chest is bruised by the constant assault of your heart.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Loneliness, Eye, Heart

Boys will be boys, that's what everyone always says. But no one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Girl, Boys

Sometimes all you’ve accomplished by the end of the day is to have maneuvered your body through space without grave incident.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Space, The End Of The Day, Body
Hilary Thayer Hamann (2010). “Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel”, p.204, Spiegel & Grau

Sometimes a day is a symbolic day, and you behave symbolically. Sometimes you search inside for a feeling, and, finding none, you remember that no feeling is frequently the most possible feeling.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Feelings, Remember, Sometimes
Hilary Thayer Hamann (2010). “Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel”, p.260, Spiegel & Grau

Optimism is when you're not sure where life is going to take you, so naturally you anticipate the best possible outcome

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Optimism, Outcomes, Life Is
Hilary Thayer Hamann (2010). “Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel”, p.89, Spiegel & Grau

Now that I'd experienced being a woman to a man I was in love with, I'd become self-conscious about being a woman to the world in general. Of course, being female is always indelicate and extreme, like operating heavy machinery. Every woman knows the feeling of being a stack of roving flesh. Sometimes all you've accomplished by the end of the day is to have maneuvered your body through space without grave incident.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Men, Space, Self

Mine is not a smiling face. Strangers on the street always say, Smile! But my muscles do not naturally go there.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Faces, Stranger, Muscles
Hilary Thayer Hamann (2010). “Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel”, p.89, Spiegel & Grau

It was frankly sort of confusing, the way everyone stared at our bodies exactly as they tried to erase the ideas of our bodies from our minds. We were supposed to get over ourselves but no one was supposed to get over us. The female body was our worst handicap and our best advantage - the surest means to success, the surest course to failure.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Girl, Women, Mean

It's better to keep grief inside. Grief inside works like bees or ants, building curious and perfect structures, complicating you. Grief outside means you want something from someone, and chances are good you won't get it.

Hilary Thayer Hamann
Grief, Mean, Want Something

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