Quotes by Alice Sebold

“Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

“It was in these moments, I knew, that my father loved my mother most. When my mother was broken and helpless, when her hard shell was stripped away and her spite and brittleness couldn't serve her....”

“There was our father, the heart we knew held all of us. Held us heavily and desperately, the doors of his heart opening and closing with the rapidity of stops on an instrument, the quiet felt closu...”

“What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child”

“In the fall he picked up his phone one afternoon to hear Grandma Lynn.'Jack,' my grandmother announced, 'I am thinking of coming to stay.' My father was silent, but the line was riddled with his he...”

“Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly.”

“That night my mother had what she considered a wonderful dream. She dreamed of the country of India, where she had never been. There were orange traffic cones and beautiful lapis lazuli insects wit...”

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

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

“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 wasn’t 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 ...”

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

“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.”

“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...”

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

“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 ...”

“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.”