Alice Sebold citations

Page 2

“The moon is whole all the time, but we can’t always see it. What we see is an almost moon or not-quite moon. The rest is hiding just out of view, but there’s only one moon, so we follow it in the sky. We plan our lives based on its rhythms and tides.”

“There wasn't a lot of bullshit in my heaven.”

“There’s no condition one adjusts to so quickly as a state of war.”

“He had been my almost. My might-have-been.

I was afraid of what I wanted most - His kiss.

Still, I collected kiss stories.

-Susie Salmon”

“I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. He didn't want to burn my photo or toss it away, but he didn't want to look at me anymore, either.”

“But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone.”

“She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything.”

“Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power?”

“Last night it had been my father who had finally said it: "She’s never coming home." A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted. But he needed to say it, and she needed to hear him say it.”

“Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go”

“You could not be filled with hate and be beautiful. Like any other girl, I wanted to be beautiful. But I was filled with hate.”

“I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon”

“A father's suspicion…' she began.
Is as powerful as a mother's intuition.'


~pg 87, Ruana Singh and Jack Salmon”

“I left my mark on that man.”

“She liked to imagine that when she passed, the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was. Except when she was at work, no one knew where she was at any time of day and no one waited for her. It was immaculate anonymity.”

“People grow up by living.”

“All you have to do is desire it, and if you desire it enough and understand why -- really know -- it will come.”

“If I shut my eyes, I believed, I would disappear. To make it through, I had to be present the whole time.”

“Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone.”

“Those who say they would rather fight to the death than be raped are fools. I would rather be raped a thousand times. You do what you have to.”

“The shadow of years was not as big on his small body. He knew I was away. But when people left they always came back.”

“Do you miss Susie?"
Because it was dark, because Ruth was facing away from her, because Ruth was almost a stranger, Lindsey said what she felt.
"More than anyone will ever know.”

“As she brought prospective buyers through, the realtor said it was an oil stain, but it was me, seeping out of the bag.”

“I wish you all a long and happy life”

“Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.”

“After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes. Often it is awe or admiration, sometimes it is repulsion, once or twice it has been fury hurled directly at me for reasons I remain unsure of.”

“You're not supposed to look back, you're supposed to keep going.”

“He had a moment of clarity about how life should be lived: not as a child or as a woman. They were the two worst things to be.”

“Well, as my dad would say, it means she’s out of this shithole.”