Life of the Party Quotes

“I want to know
what it means to survive
something.
does it just mean
I get to keep my body?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“If you have a son, how will you love him?
She is pacing the living room,
while the Thanksgiving Day Parade
plays behind her, a montage of inflated
cartoon bodies, floating slow
down 6th Avenue, smiles
painted onto their faces.

I consider not responding.
I consider explaining that I can love him and not trust him. I consider saying that I won’t
love him at all. Just to scare her. Instead, I say,

If I am ever murdered, like,
body found in a ditch, mouth
stuffed with dirt, stocking
around my neck, identified
by my toenails, please don’t go
looking for a guilty woman.

("My Grandmother Asks Why I Don't Trust Men")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“The truth is: It is a privilege to have your body looked for.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“16. Laughter is not about humor,
it is about acknowledging a shared joy.
Laughter is about bonding.

EXAMPLE: WHEN I HEAR MEN LAUGHING,
I DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM.
I CRAWL HOME IN THE DARK.

("Mans/Laughter")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Reader, I cannot promise you will be less afraid when you finish this book, but I hope you will feel more able to name what lives inside you.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Maybe, the only reason we fall in love
is to see what we look like to someone else."

("The Lover as a Cult")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“What is more teen girl than not being loved, but wanting it so badly that you accept the smallest crumb and call yourself full?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“I want to write a poem for the women on Long Island
who, when I show them the knife I carry in my purse,
tell me it’s not big enough,

("Ode to the Women On Long Island")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Maybe I see myself in the worst of it. Maybe if I can imagine myself in the shallow water, you should too. Maybe I am tired of hearing people talk about the murder of girls like it is both beautiful and out of the ordinary.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Sometimes, the writer in me wants to remember just so I can give you a story.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“i hate telling people how it happened. there is a difference between fact & truth. the fact is that she overdosed. the truth is that he killed her.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“They see us as kids now, but the beatdowns will be different when they don’t. There is a special hatred reserved for women and women alone.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Men always want to come inside you so that if they give you a sickness or a baby, you are bound to them forever. People will tell you men don’t like commitment and the first rule is that you shouldn’t believe them. Remember, sickness or a baby. Neither of which they’ll take care of.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“You must know the width of the knife and how it ruined you, name the organs it kissed.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Some things are more a feeling than they are a memory.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“what does it mean to have an instinct? does it just mean I was born to avoid a certain breed of death?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“No one was expecting me but everyone is relieved I am here. I am dressed perfectly for this weather. I am so glad I chose this outfit. I know exactly how to dance to this music.[...] I can make anyone fall in love with me, as long as they aren’t close by.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“I once heard the word 'conversation'
described as a progression of exchanges
but there is no progress here
so maybe I will instead compare this
to the bullet drop—the idea that if you shoot
a gun & drop a bullet from the same location
they will hit the floor at the same time,
hundreds of feet apart.

("The Lover as a Dream")”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“The language of true crime is coded—it tells us our degree of mourning is contingent on the victim’s story. While students and athletes are often remembered for their accolades and looks, sex workers or women who struggled with addiction are reduced to those identities as a justification for the violence committed against them—if their stories are even covered at all. The truth is: It is a privilege to have your body looked for. True crime, while being a genre that so many women rely on for contorted validation, is, simultaneously, a perpetuator of misogyny, racism, and sexualized violence—all of which is centered around one, beloved, dead girl. It is a genre primarily produced by men. A genre that complicates how we bond over our love for it, often unsure of who identifies with the victim and who identifies with the perpetrator.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“I wanna be all the girls I've ever loved.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Laughter is not about humor, it is about acknowledging a shared joy. Laughter is about bonding. EXAMPLE: WHEN I HEAR MEN LAUGHING, I DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM. I CRAWL HOME IN THE DARK.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“I don't know how to not become the people I bring home.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“We have the composite sketch in our pockets. We held it up to our fathers while they slept.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“But every time I read the news, I am pummeled by stories of missing girls, murdered girls, women killed by their revenge-seeking former boyfriends, and it becomes increasingly difficult to call the murder of women “rare.” It is impossible to call my fear “irrational.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“What am I, if not yours? What do I do with my hands when they are just hands?”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“Another rule to good storytelling is that no one wants a half-remembered tragedy. You must know the width of the knife and how it ruined you, name the organs it kissed.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“like small children lining up behind a telescope, giddy for a suddenly reachable universe.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“It seems, somehow, Elephant Butte Lake has made a hobby out of taking my boys and leaving me to carry the weight.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“our bodies are the only things we own,
leave our kids with nothing when we die”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party

“No one wants a half remembered tragedy. You must know the width of the knife and how it ruined you, name the organs it kissed.”
― Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party