A funny thing happens when you tell a man that you don’t want to get married: they don’t believe you. They think you’re lying to yourself or you’re lying to them or you’re trying to trick them in some way and you end up being made to feel worse just for telling the truth. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

Her life is architected, elegant and angular, a beauty to behold, and mine is a stew, a juicy, sloppy mess of ingredients and feelings and emotions, too much salt and spice, too much anxiety, always a little dribbling down the front of my shirt. But have you tasted it? Have you tasted it. It’s delicious. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

We’re sharing rape stories. Nearly every woman I know has one. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard one of these stories I could buy an enormous, plush pillow with which to smother my tear-stained face. Near rape, date rape, rape rape, it’s all the same, I think. Close enough is rape. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

No matter how much you own yourself and your body and your mind, there are men who will always try to seek power over your body, even if it is just with their eyes, although often it is with their words and sometimes with their hands. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

Perfection itself is boring; it’s only everything leading up to it that’s interesting. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

Better to deny desire than to collapse from it. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

To my great surprise I am still alive on this planet. And that’s what we toast to – to still being alive. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

People architect new lives all the time. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg

I feel like my whole universe has folded itself in and then out again, renewing my soul and my mind. – All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg