You Could Be So Pretty Quotes

“Choice means nothing if you feel you have no other option than to choose what everyone chooses. If there are significant consequences for not following the established path.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“But it is my face. It is. It is. And my face is enough.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“I can't hear his footsteps yet but there's no man faster and stronger than a man angry at a girl.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“Your heels,' she says quietly. 'They're like that for a reason, you know.'
I turn back. 'Like what?'
'Impossible to walk in . . . to run in.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“You think following the Doctrine gives you power,' she says, 'but it's all designed to weaken you, to make you compliant.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“Well, you're a very pretty Pretty, Belle. Maybe he just couldn't help himself?”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“They're not arresting me. They are not carting me off in the night to be euthanised. But they are ridiculing me. Shaming me. Laughing at me. Even though I am the smartest girl in this year . . . they do not care, they cannot see it, they can only see my natural ugliness compared to the Pretties' synthetic attractiveness.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“I'm being punished for daring to help someone.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“What's important is I know inside that I am powerful and awake . . . not them. They actually think the Bad Times are over. They think how we live is healthy. They think it's normal.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“The rules prescribe behaviour, not Beauty, The end result isn't a Pretty Face but compliant girls. Weakened girls.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“They go for me because I upset the order. They go for me because I scare them. It's nothing to do with what I look like, and all to do with how I behave.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“Choice means nothing if you feel you have no other option than to choose what everyone else chooses. Choice means nothing if there are significant consequences for not following the established path.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“And what's the Big Lie?' I ask,
'That we won,' Joni says simply, shrugging. 'That women and girls did it. That the fight is over. The Mask you wear every day, that most women wear every day, is proof that the fight isn't over.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“Joni rolls her eyes slightly. 'We've achieved a lot, sure,' she says, 'but there's a limit to what we can achieve for a number of reasons. Mainly our society, how it's builty, cannot function if women are given true equality. The survival of how things are literally depends on women being less, earning less, thinking they are less . . . despite being told everything is equal now.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“I mean girls and women often take on the most essential roles we need to keep our society going. Whether that's by having the children we need and raising them, or nursing sick people, or nursing elderly people. Whether that's keeping homes running and clean, and keeping everybody fed and nurtured. Even if women go into the Industry, they provide their labour for less Finance. They are almost always paid less for the same Industry work.' She smiles wryly and takes a sip of her drink. 'The truth is, if we started actually paying women for all the vital jobs they do . . . well . . . where would the Finance come from? How do we even begin to start paying for these things we expect women to do for free, or insultingly cheaply? The entire financial system needs to change. Men and oys need to give things up. Give up their easier wat of life, rather than relying on our free or cheap vital labour. They need to share their income with us. Take on their share of raising children. Be willing to take on those caring jobs too, or at least properly pay the women who do them.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“That being pretty is a trap,' she says, 'because we need girls to hate themselves so they accept less. And wanting to be Pretty isn't a choice. It's something you want out of necessity. We have to be Pretty in order to get anyone to see us in this supposed-equal society we are so lucky to live in. You have to be Pretty in order to be liked. In order to be loved. We're groomed to be terrified of showing our faces - literally just showing our natural faces to the world, because we're told natural girls' faces are plain and ugly, and artifical masks are what make you pretty and Visible. What does that do to us? That fear? That pressure? It's a constant distraction to undermine us.' She laughs cynically. 'And what makes it so hilarious is it's sold to us as being Empowered, and wanting the best for ourselves, as aspirational. Who can look the least like a real girl? She wins! But at what cost?”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“I remember what Joni has told me, time and time over. It's not a choice. Because you risk losing love if you don't play by the Rules.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“I do not sleep. I hardly eat. My whole body is sore and tight and tired and hungry and plucked and I'm so exhausted but maybe its worth it because of what you just said.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty

“They didn't have to make things illegal. If society punishes you enough, then laws aren't needed.”
― Holly Bourne, You Could Be So Pretty