Five-Star Stranger Quotes

“All I was doing was making myself useful so that I might be loved, but I was nothing but a leech simpering for a taste of adjacent happiness.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“Did mannequins in a storefront chitchat? No, they simply sold the clothes and the fantasy life they advertised.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“Indeed, clothes make the invisible man visible: brands give him a position in society and styling gives him soul.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“I raised a hand, trying to capture this feeling of serenity - but the moment I named it as such, it was gone; the shadows of my memories stretched overhead, shading these bright daydreams, reminding me that I didn't deserve such peace, not yet.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“I purposely chose places that were relatively obvious, both at school and around the apartment, because the thrill of being undetected was paltry compared to the relief of being found.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“to my mother I was never consequential enough to be a savior or a villain, only ever a side character.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“and yet I had enough experience to recognize how when my clients found out they’d gotten exactly what they thought they wanted, they were often disappointed by their own lack of imagination.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“Death is unfair.” “Death is an equalizer; life is unfair.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“The characters were lambasted by her classmates as suffering too tragically, or being tragically insufferable. But Darlene was dedicated to tragedy, because wasn’t that what great literature was about? What kind of novel would Madame Bovary be if the eponymous character simply had accepted life at her station, cheerily raised her child in the countryside, and died of old age surrounded by loved ones? Why read stories at all if living the small tragedies of our own lives suffices? “And that’s what art, and life, is about, isn’t it?” she said,”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger

“That’s the type of hurt he’s so good at,” she continued. “The unintentional kind. The kind where you want to be nice and good but when you’re face-to-face with someone you’re meant to love, you can’t even lift your arms, much less hold them close, and you wonder if maybe you’re not even trying that hard, or if there’s just something defective in you that you’re not capable of kindness. A deep-rooted selfishness that only serves to hurt those around you.”
― Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger