Famous in a Small Town Quotes

“I wish she were here.” She is, people would say. She’s smiling down at you. She’ll be with you every step of the way. Yes, I always wanted to reply. Yes, maybe. But that is nowhere near the same. It is in exactly no way the same as actually being.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“The ultimate diagnosis was a broken ankle, bruised ribs, a sprained wrist.
"One in every flavor," August said with a weak smile.
"You're like the Yum Yum Shoppe of bodily harm."
He shook his head. 'Fourteen flavors of fun. I would need eleven more injuries."
"You'll probably have a bunch of bruises."
"Eleven of them?"
"Yup."
"Then I'm the Yum Yum Shoppe.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“...of the sheets held up around the terrible car crash he saw, so people couldn't see the dead bodies when they pulled them out.
Was dead bodies redundant? When do people ever refer to it as a body unless it's a dead one? Pop songs, maybe? Get your body on the dance floor- that's what I was doing now, but it had to be qualified, the body had to belong to someone. No one sang about "the body"- just "your body" or "my body" and if you were addressing someone about their body on yours, you were both alive, right? Get the body on the dance floor was way more sinister. The implied emptiness. The body was vacant. No one was home.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“Brit: "You know what I hate most about it> It's like someone copy-and-pasted the landscape. Just the same sky and the same field over and over again. Like, have some creativity, at least. Break it up with a little flavor every now and then."
Dash: "The billboards add flavor."
Brit: "We clearly have different ideas about flavor, Dashiell.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“I told August this, and he nodded I consideration. "Could be possible."
"Fifty grand to fix your vacuum."
"I mean, that's a deal. My vacuum cost twelve million dollars."
"Really."
"Uh-huh. Military-grade. It could drain a lake."
I grinned. "If you aim it at the sky, it's capable of tearing a hole in the fabric of space.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“Do you have, like...stuff to do?" he said finally. "While the girls are asleep?"
"Yeah. I usually go through Kyle and Heather's room. Tyr on all their clothes, roll around in their bed. That kind of thing.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“After all, it's where the teens are at, Brit has said. It's the zone for teens. We almost can't exist in any other kind of zone. Child Zone? Forget it. Adult Zone? Fuck that noise. I am for the Teen Zone only.
She also often used it as a euphemism: I want to put my Teen Zone on his Teen one. I want her all up in my Teen Zone.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town

“I really thought I could do it. Maybe that’s my problem.”

“What?”

“That I think I can make something happen just by wanting it enough. Objectively, it’s like...pretty stupid and naive.”

“Maybe, but it’s also kind of good, don’t you think?”

“Why?”

“It’s probably better than thinking that nothing you feel or do can ever make a difference, right? I’d rather believe in something.”
― Emma Mills, Famous in a Small Town