Quotes from book

We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Everything people do that doesn’t work has to be somebody else’s fault. Next time you know, geezers’ll be suing the government for getting old and kids’ll be taking their mommies to court because they came out ugly.”

“People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment.”

“Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.”

“We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours.”

“Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment.”

“I didn't care about anything. And there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk. You can do anything. Ask Kevin.”

“Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.”

“Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed.”

“Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.”

“… some people coddle their own afflictions the way others spoil small pedigreed dogs with cans of pate.”

“That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable.”

“I was suffering from the delusion that it's the thought that counts.”

“Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches.”

“It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.”

“You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.”

“… You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.”

“How lucky we are, when we're spared what we think we want!”

“Teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic but even Jesus was probably paid better.”

“The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.”