Quotes by Alice Sebold

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

“I was like I was in science class: I was curious.”

“Oh sweetheart, do you really think if youseal it up, that the pain's gonna go away?”

“This little girl's grown up by now," she said.Almost.Not quite.I wish you all a long and happy life.”

“Samuel walked out to Lindsey then, and there she was in his arms, my sweet butterball babe, born ten years after my fourteen years on Earth: Abigail Suzanne. Little Susie to me. Samuel placed Susie...”

“No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”

“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.”

“He hadn't woken a day since my death when the day wasnt something to get through. But the truth was, the memorial service day was not the worst kind. At least it was honest. At least it was a day s...”

“I could not imagine my youngest standing above her soiled grandmother in the wing chair and saying, "mother, let's kill her. "That's the only choice.”

“We lay there with our bodies touching, and as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. That was all. I was still breathing. I heard his heart. I smelle...”

“Try to breathe," he said, and for the first time the only thought in my head after an instruction like that wasn't Fuck you.I breathed.”

“Our only kiss was like an accident- a beautiful gasoline rainbow.”

“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.”

“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 ...”

“How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.”

“For me the saddest thing was that these animals smelled the brokenness in him the human defect and kept away.”

“Out loud I said I had two children. Silently I said three. I always felt like apologizing to her for that.”

“I knew my mother's limitations because they formed the marrow of my bones.”

“Soon she noted that teachers in subjects besides gym didn't report her if she cut. They were happy not to have her there: her intelligence made her a problem. It demanded attention and rushed their...”

“In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and ...”