Quotes from book

Just Listen

“I didn't want to talk about what happened, so it seemed safest not to talk at all.”

“People get mad Annabel. Its not the end of the world.”

“I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.”

“Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.”

“If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.”

“But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.”

“Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.”

“Whether it was a song, a person, or a story, there was a lot you couldn’t know from just an excerpt, a glance, or part of a chorus.”

“Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.”

“Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.'
Are those the only options?'
Not always. Just sometimes.”

“There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your heart.”

“I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we'd all be hanging from nooses. Right?”

“I was so scared about being discovered, but nobody came. Nobody heard. In my own ears, though, my sobs sounded primal and scary, like something I would have turned off if I'd been able to.”

“If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.”

“It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.”

“So I learned another system: When in doubt, keep it out – out of earshot, out of the house – even if this meant, really, just keeping it in.”

“Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible”

“All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough by to shoulder the rest.”

“See for me, it’s immediate. Silence is so freaking loud.' This seemed either deep or deeply oxymoronic. I wasn’t sure which.”