(Regarding check-cashing places): It's hitting me how poor this really is: I'm standing in a long line to pay someone to give me my pay. So, technically, they get paid before I do, and it's my damn check.
This was awkward to infinity. Alex living here would change my entire routine. I was sharing a bathroom with my boyfriend. How scary was that? I had tampons and pads and everything in there. He was going to be naked in the shower on the other side of...
I know my father blamed himself, since he is the one who discovered me pawing through his pornography in the basement as a child. Even then, I marveled at the strangeness of the women in the magazines, their hair feathered in a style I struggled to b...
If you aren’t ready, you spend your whole life perseverating on that one situation, getting it wrong time and again. I like to think I am a woman who learns her lesson, but the trick is that you can only ever understand your life backwards, but you...
It reached a point where the paranoia was getting to me. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like people were hanging out, wanting to date, hooking up, wanting to hook up—it was relationships, relationships, relationships everywhere. Guys checking out g...
I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist twirl across the page. When they settle, it is too late. The class has already moved on. I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.
It's easier to make up stories than it is to write them down. When I speak, the words come pouring out of me. The story wakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair, crosses one leg over the other, says, Let me introduce myself. Then just st...
A brick could be used to separate two types of people. On the left is a guy who loves my writing, and on the right is a girl who loves my writing. Now I love both people, but I love the girl in an entirely different way—the kind of way that involve...
As girls, we will do anything for the person whom we love. We will scale buildings in the rain or run through fire if it means saving our love’s life. There is absolutely nothing more life altering that the fire burning inside of our souls for the ...
She says it is a school for bluestockings which, according to her, is really only a fashionable way of saying it is a school for ugly girls who cannot find suitable husbands. To tease her, for I believe it is one of his greatest pleasures in this lif...
Kessa ran her fingers over her stomach. Flat. But was it flat enough? Not quite. She still had some way to go. Just to be safe, she told herself. Still, it was nice the way her pelvic bones rose like sharp hills on either side of her stomach. I love ...
Let me give you a bit of advice.' the girl said bitterly, 'from one working girl to another; life isn't easy, no matter where you are. You'll make choices you think are right and then suffer for them.' Those remarkable eyes flickered. 'So if you're g...
Okay, listen, I don't know what dumb lines you are used to giving girls so they fall all over you but I just want you to know that I wasn't born yesterday so I am gonna go now and leave you to whatever dumb idiot girl is gonna buy that line.
I'd grown up hearing stories about the special hazards that girls faced. I knew where the bodies were found: naked on beaches or cut into pieces, parts frozen in freezers or buried in cement. These stories were never kept from us girls. Instead they ...
Integrity is the most important accessory you'll ever have, it will never go out of fashion, get old, or fade. It's the greatest investment you'll ever make, and a noble fight you'll spend your lifetime pursuing.
Surely there was at least one other girl on campus not sporting a French pedicure (do girls really think we’re fooled by the little white lines painted across their toenails?), who had some black in her wardrobe, and actually thought about things. ...
To sit down on a chair and read my books with all my friends at school is my right. To see each and every human being with a smile of happiness is my wish. I am Malala. My world has changed but I have not.
Let us pick up our books and our pens,” I said. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.
Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don't think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.
Though we loved school, we hadn't realized how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us. Going to school, reading and doing our homework wasn't just a way of passing time, it was our future.
Once you’re out of the classroom, you might vow never to open another book, after being force-fed their contents for so many years. But know this: Books are the most worthy companions to take with you on this bitter-sweet journey known as life.
