“From early childhood on, I was haunted by the feeling that no one could hear me.” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“And now I was proving that apparently I had learned no lesson at all about making bad, spontaneous, emotionally based decisions.” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘It’s just that I’m so tired of everybody throwing up their hands every time a relationship hits a rough patch,’ I said. ‘I did it in both my marriages, and I swore I wouldn’t do it again.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘There’s so much I wanted to give you. But I just couldn’t.’ ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I screamed at him as he closed the door behind him. ‘is that some kind of bullshit for people without a grid?’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘A relationship with the opposite sex is like buying a new American car,’ he said, mixing paint. ‘It starts out looking great, but it only keeps going for about two and a half years. Then you spend the next two and a half years trying to restore it.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘Well, there’s two kinds of peeing,’ he said.  ’There’s regular peeing, because you have to pee.  And then there’s auxiliary competitive peeing.  For acquiring an empire.  I’m all about the real estate.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘As a language purist, I can’t bring myself to say ‘grande latte,’ knowing that the rest of my sentence is going to be in English.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘So that jack-off goes with you to hold your hand? Unless he’s gay, he just wants to fuck you. No straight guy acts like that without a motive.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘And if none of this links to anything in you, well … I think you don’t know who I am. And that makes me think I’m just waiting around to be surprised that you’ve decided it’s time for you to get out of here. Again.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘I’m not into bullshit clichés like dying.’” – Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe

“‘someone liking you is a good thing, not a danger sign.’” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“be wary of men who love too much too soon for no reason.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“I have often heard it said that the thing you want appears when you least expect it, after you have totally given up hope. But, deep in my heart, I can sense that I have not really given up hope. Which makes me wonder if my allowing hope to live is what is clogging up the plumbing. On the one hand, I think that maybe if I start to admit that ‘yes, I am in the Hole. I have finally given up hope,’ then that very admission will speed up the process of sending a healthy relationship my way. And on the other hand, I worry that the very act of forcing myself to prematurely give up hope in the name of speeding things up is in fact an act of hope. Either way I’m screwed.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“when he whined about his aching heart was like a battlefield, why had he neglected to mention who it was who first declared war? exactly what really happened to all those girls he claimed tortured him because they just wanted to be free? did they really demand their freedom? or was it forced on them when they couldn’t get a hold of him? maybe they all just went nuts trying to figure out how long he meant by ‘soon.’” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“the Hole is what i worry about. i’m at the age where i notice that an awful lot of women fall into the Hole. All these nice, smart, fun, attractive women in their late thirties and upward–sitting in there, whining, moaning, hoping for escape. and for the most part, they aren’t quite sure what happened to cause them to take the tumble. but once they have fallen in, they can’t seem to find a way out again.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“i looked like i was trying very hard to be something i was never intended to be, and failing in the most embarrassing way possible.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“maybe i needed to take more risks. maybe a checkered, goofy love life full of tragedy and strife, full of hideous lows and delusional highs, was better than a long blank period jam-packed with nothing. maybe this was the message the universe was trying to give me. it was instructing me to stop worrying about trying to get things right and just do something, anything. be vulnerable. don’t think so much. live.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“i have to trust my instincts. when i have started to lecture myself in order to bypass them is when i know i need to worry.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“now I finally understood why getting involved with a musician was so dangerous. with a guy who has a regular job, like, say, a teacher or salesman, you have to use your imagination to provide yourself with the necessary obsessional data. you have to try to remember what they said or did or how they looked. you need photographs. or letters. you need to drive your friends crazy seeking out their opinions on your anecdotes, making them listen to you tell them over and over. you have to use applied teenage logic to make the songs on the radio seem to be about you.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“I have high hopes that this year will be the year the dumb girl in me finally dies. she is long overdue for a painless, or even a painful, death. I’m so sick of listening to her try to convince me of things I know don’t make any sense: that the plots of romantic movies are plausible; that men who have cheated repeatedly might suddenly decide to turn over a new leaf; that guys who are assholes might turn out to be more considerate in time.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“there is no more intense reading than the kind you have to do when you want other people not to think it is sad that you are dining alone.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“after that i stopped seeing him. i don’t know who initiated the stoppage. but once it ground to a halt, no one bothered to put the key back in the engine and turn it again. for a brief moment i thought that maybe soon wasn’t up yet. but this time ‘soon’ meant never again.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“‘that’s how real unconditional love works,’ I started to lecture myself, when I would begin to worry about our relationship. ‘I have lived a life of such serious deprivation that I’m like a starving person at an all-you-can-eat buffet.’ I tried to ignore the nervous voice in my head that kept repeating, what did I do to make him love me so damn much this soon? and if he loves me so much, why haven’t we slept together yet?” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“what was wrong with me anyway? here I had acquired Mr. Wonderful and I was scanning the territory for land mines. my refusal to believe that I was worthy of love was causing me to cast aspersions randomly and for no reason.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“the effect it had on my libido was so dramatic that I didn’t know how to act. the dumb girl wanted to drag him onto the backseat of my car, pin him down so he couldn’t escape, and start to unbutton his clothes. but my smarter self told me to get into my car alone immediately and get myself home.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“and why did I care? I wasn’t even supposed to care. I had promised myself I wouldn’t care.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“which category was I? or was I too insignificant to even have a category?” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“i mean, even if he did call, what the fuck did he want me to say? ‘it’s okay that you jerked me around and treated me like shit. now that i have received this enormous bouquet of seasonal flowers, i am beginning to see you in a very different light. suddenly the past is growing hazy. all the hateful things you did and said have grown distant and hard to recall. so if you want to come by for some coffee or a drink at your convenience, i would love to say hello and give you a blow job!’” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“he was the asshole in this. he was the liar and the cheater. i was so lucky he didn’t call me.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe

“He had already yanked some tears out of me without my permission and now here I was obsessing on the psychological origins of his behavior as a way to seem more detached than I really was. I was secretly terrified that the dumb girl inside me might want him back.” – It’s My F—ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe