The Ugly Cry Quotes

“Grandma had been encouraging me to castrate men since I was old enough to know what dicks even were.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“When I was born and the nurse held me like a football, when I opened my creepy little eyes, the first person I saw was my grandmother. I opened my eyes and saw the love of my life.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“If you see a teenager in the wild, be gentle. Every single one, even the coolest among them, is navigating the world like a twitching sack of snakes stuck in the molting phase.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Children were not to be seen or heard and were definitely not to complain about any injuries sustained during the fifteen hours a day we were roaming the streets. The 1980s were a decade of neglect, and I haven’t felt freedom or terror like it since.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“My grandma was the scariest person I’d ever met, and I could not imagine any man having the ability to terrify me more than her.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“The rush of adrenaline I used to get when someone told me I could stay up past my bedtime has since been replaced with the wave of euphoria I feel whenever I realize I can go to sleep before 9:00 p.m.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Danielle Elizabeth Henderson! Get your ass over here!' she shouted. Grandma always used my full name when she was angry. None of the shoppers around her turned a head or lifted a finger to help; in the 1980s, department stores were full of people shouting the names of temporarily lost children, a cacophony of negligent parenting always ringing out like the last act of an opera.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“I was surrounded by whiteness and hadn’t yet learned that I was beautiful in a different way.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“I don’t resemble my mom at all. Mom made beauty seem like a magic trick I’d never learn. I think there was a part of me that was trying, in those moments, to know her deeply, deep enough so that I could one day bring to light any small part of me that was hers. —”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“If touching a spider kills you, well, I guess you were too delicate for this earth, and it was nice knowing you.” My summers always started with a firm acknowledgment that I might die as a result of trying to enjoy them.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Grandma never understood fear, especially if it was someone else’s.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“My grandparents got creative to make space for three kids in their two-bedroom home. They took one of the bedrooms, my mom and aunt shared the other, and my uncle Bobby slept on the screened-in porch. Every single one of your neighbors would call Child Protective Services if you put a child on the porch these days, but this was the seventies, which was basically a lawless decade where children were concerned. Lawn Darts -- a game where one child would stand in a Hula-Hoop placed on the ground and another child would aim for the hoop by launching oversize, spiky metal darts at them -- hit its peak in this year for a reason: if your child was fed and moderately clothed, people turned a blind eye to your second-degree murder-adjacent shenanigans.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“It was possible that I could stop assuming that no one could handle the whole mess of me and give them a chance to surprise me instead.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry

“Port Authority”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Looking at them now, I realized love wasn’t something you could perform but something you felt together.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Grandma always knew a lot about the world just from paying attention to it, and she talked with the authority of someone who experienced things she never did.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“If anyone tries to grab you, you know what to do?” I rolled my eyes again. “Cut his dick off.” “That’s right,” Grandma said. She pointed at me and tilted her head up to look me in the eye. “If anybody ever puts their hands on you, you cut their pecker right off.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Thank you,” I said to my lap, unable to stop the knee-jerk reaction to Mom’s invective. She taught me this. How to be kind, passive. He used that kindness to hurt me, to shame me into silence.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Warwick took on a sheen of impermanence. I could go anywhere, be anyone. I didn’t want to be like my mom, to give my life over to men. I couldn’t conceive of a life that revolved around or even involved men.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“For most people, summer wasn’t in full swing until the straps of your bathing suit left grill marks on your shoulders, or you could peel long strips of blistered skin from your back like a sheet of loose-leaf paper. For me, a fair-skinned person with freckles, a hearty sunburn was my way of saying to people, Look, I’ve been outside this summer, at least once. Please don’t ask me to do this again.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“My uncle and I had a fairly compact “Take My Wife” routine for two people who were not married and couldn’t stand the sight of each other.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“A cold feeling crept through my body and settled on my skin in a cool sweat as I realized: the person I counted on most in the world was just as powerless as I was.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“At eight years old, I already felt the imbalance of a world that never wanted me to forget that I had nothing.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“They’re eating the brains.” He laughed with his whole body; I could feel him bouncing around on the end of the couch. Watching Faces of Death was a sport for him; who knew how many times he’d seen it. His joy was perverse; as much as I feared his anger, his happiness in the face of destruction made me want to crawl out of my skin.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“I craved my mom, even when she was standing right next to me. With her hand in mine and my head resting on her hip, I wondered what I could do to make her feel as light as she seemed to be with everyone else. I wanted her to gently touch my arm and laugh at my knock-knock jokes the way she did when strangers said anything at all. What would it feel like to have my mom all to myself?”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Mom was always getting it half right—she came to my rescue when I needed it but still found a way to blame me for needing to be rescued in the first place.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“It was nice to be invited to eat with another family. The Garretts didn’t have a dad either, but I never asked why. I liked the feeling of not having to explain that part of myself to someone else and thought Erin might feel the same way.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“It slowly dawned on me: if I could lie and be quickly forgiven, there was nothing to stop me from actually doing some of the stuff I was making up. Catholicism flipped a switch and turned me on to a life of crime.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“Like serial killers and three of the worst men I ever dated, I never really had a grasp on what I was supposed to feel sorry about. Week after week, I filled the confessional with lies. I yelled at my teacher. I stole my best friend’s favorite toy. I kicked a dog. I punched my brother in the nuts.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person

“I’d never met him, so I never missed him.”
― Danielle Henderson, The Ugly Cry: How I Became a Person