Tell Me Everything Quotes
"I’m going to put an egg in your ramen, just how you like it!"
"Mom had two speeds: hyperexcited and ready to party, or tuned out and bleak."
"I wasn’t proud of Mom’s work, but at seven, I wasn’t exactly embarrassed by it, either."
"I wanted all the stink of whiskey, stale cigarettes, and perfume to go away."
"I was an observant child, noting every shift in her, an amateur meteorologist trying to get a bead on the change from high pressure to low."
"I recognized it was my job to manage those moods and make sure I didn’t upset her."
"Kids are resilient and imaginative, coming up with ways to make sense of what’s happening around them."
"The fact that I never knew when she would mete out her next punishment was almost as exhausting as the rolling and scratching, the anticipation always leaving me on edge."
"My best guess was that she’d found other work after the Philippines and had been sent elsewhere."
"That way, if anything happened and Mom couldn’t get it together to care for me, maybe then Claudia would take me in."
"I tried to focus on my schoolwork and forget where I was, but it was hard."
"I was the girl with the candy more so than Minka Stinka."
"Mom stayed in bed most days, unwashed, sleeping and eating candy."
"She made everything she wore look special."
"I was used to coming home and finding men I didn’t know with Mom."
"I was an appendage that followed her wherever she went."
"She wasn’t going to be happy about this situation."
"I had no idea who these people were, absolutely no memory of the scenes they described. My brain was doing what it needed to, erasing as much of the painful parts as possible, so I could keep moving forward."
"I guess, by the time she finally returned, there’d simply been too many times I’d cried for my mommy, not knowing where she was or when I’d see her again."
"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."
"Mom eventually returned and to celebrate her homecoming, she took me to get my ears pierced at Claire’s."
"Emergency surgery," Mom explained as they prepared to whisk me away. "Your appendix ruptured. They need to take it out and get the poison out of your body."
"I was so taken aback by their affection and praise, I didn’t know what to do with myself."
"I deserved to know and yet she steadfastly refused to tell me. So, I blocked what I could."
"Being sick didn’t scare me, but the bills that would result if she had to take me to the doctor did."
"I had everything I needed: playmates, ample adult supervision, warm food at the ready, and a deep sense of belonging."
"All my life, I had been learning how to make myself useful."
"I tried to be a loving niece for the short time we had together."
"I’d gotten fed up with it. I was becoming hardened."
"If I lose him because of you, I’ll never forgive you."
"This was the first time in my life I realized I knew how to make a home for myself and that I was not a burden to anybody."
"I was determined to get away from Rudy."
"I felt good and wholesome and career focused."
"Someone needed to give them a break. Even if that break was just taking care of the damn phone bill."
"I kept thinking, This music, it’s in my blood. I can feel it!"
"I wanted to create a calm and peaceful home and to do work that mattered."
"To earn love, I needed to be a certain way."
"I felt exposed and raw and wanted to hide."
"I was now fully willing to take her anger and her abandonment in order to be true to myself."
"I could set my mind to a task and accomplish it. Not only accomplish it, but excel at it."
"How do you invite someone to be closer to you when they’ve clearly made a decision to pull away?"
"I kept the audition a secret from him. If I didn’t get the part, he wouldn’t be disappointed. And if I did get it? Then I’d pop a bottle of champagne."
"By the time I was in the room with Pete, everything was different."
"I had a blast and he seemed convinced I could do it."
"When someone betrays your trust that deeply, there’s no going back."
"I’m going to Marie’s. I’ll make arrangements for movers to come get my things."
"My heart hurt, like I could almost feel the organ behind my rib cage leaking its insides into my chest cavity."
"You’re moving to Austin! Minka. You got the part!"
"I thanked the universe for giving me a break when I desperately needed one."
"Women are often taught to never offend or upset a man when declining his advances. We do what we must to escape without harm."
"I was in such shock, I didn’t know what to do. In true me fashion, I needed to make everything okay, and because I wanted to be the cool girl, I went along with it."
"Never disrespect me or another woman on this set."
"As women, though, I gotta say, we get tired of having to demand common decency."
"That’s okay," I said, not wanting to get into it. "I just want to make sure those pictures are gone."
"I was a minor," I said to her. "I was a kid."
"I don’t want to work with him. How dare he!"
"Women have never enjoyed the fruits of equality or equity in the history of humankind and it continues to shape the paths available to us."
"My sisterhood means the world to me and I cherish them with every fiber of my being. Men will come and they will go, but it is the women in your lives who’ll always be there."
"Our mind and body are built to protect us from pain, and in order to survive difficult experiences, our brain stores those painful memories deep down in the abyss of our psyches, so hidden we might think they aren’t of any concern."