Victory Lap Quotes

“Pain flirts with the shape of her face, her eyes growing glassy and pink even though she’s the one ending things. She doesn’t do well with hurting people. She’s a vegetarian.
And this is an emotional slaughterhouse.”
― K.A. Mielke, Victory Lap

“Kids who, I hope, have a couple years left before they have to think about what they’ll be like at seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen, expected by parents and teachers and politicians and everyone else to have everything figured out—but on the authority figure of the day’s terms, not their own. If these kids are trans, queer, or people of colour, how many of their nights are already spent curled up and defeated on the couch?”
― K.A. Mielke, Victory Lap

“When you grow up, what are you going to be?
A doctor, an engineer, a mechanic, what?
A fisherman trawling his net in the sea?
Better choose, don’t want to leave any door shut
But aren’t we all too young to decide?
I need more time, to think, to live, to learn,
I promise I’m not taking the system for a ride,
It’s just my future path I can’t discern.
So now I’m back to try once more.
Grade twelve, part two, gonna give it a go.
It is your patience I must implore,
I promise I won’t just play Nintendo.
Because it’s not that I don’t give a crap.
I just really need to take a victory lap.”
― Riley Alexis Wood, Victory Lap

“The sign at the front of the lot seems to promise to REDEFINE, REVIVE, and RECAPTURE the magic of the Castle. The city wants to rebuild it as some sort of condo with a historical facade or something. It won’t be for us, the young, aimless, or homeless. But it will rise again in full glory, given a second chance at life.
Maybe we deserve that, too.”
― K.A. Mielke, Victory Lap

“Obviously, Josh and Mel, like all old friends, have history, and history is rife with skirmishes and peace treaties and political coups. But I should have done more to get us to, I don’t know, a ceasefire or something. “Lay down your arms, don’t you know it’s Halloween!”
― K.A. Mielke, Victory Lap

“I never imagined how different first kisses could be until I had two in twenty-four hours.”
― K.A. Mielke, Victory Lap

“A car with the right exterior, but the wrong parts, the wrong chassis. Boys just want the model that doesn’t take any mods to get it the way they like.”
― Riley Alexis Wood, Victory Lap