Alice Sebold Quotes

I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand

Since then I've always thought that under rape in the dictionary it should tell the truth. It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything.

I was trying to prove to them and to myself that I was still who I had always been. I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined.

The damage can fester under layers of time and change, and an ignorant, thoughtless remark can easily reopen the wound.

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

The sun came through the branches of the tree above her, and Ruth looked up past them. "I think she listens," she said, too softly to be heard.

I forgive you," I said. I said what I had to. I would die by pieces to save myself from real death.

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.

I missed her then but it was an odd sort of missing because by then, I knew the meaning of forever.

And my sister, my Lindsey, left me in her memories, where I was meant to be.

He was beginning to understand: You were treated special and, later, something horrible would be told to you.

As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.

I have always felt extremely weird. But I am very happy with my weirdnesses, and I want other people to be very happy with theirs.

I think you only learn what kind of personality you have by committing to things.

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

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.

Loss could be used as a measure of beauty in a woman.

Between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. That doesn’t mean the weaker one doesn’t love the stronger.

It's very weird to succeed at thirty-nine years old and realize that in the midst of your failure, you were slowly building the life that you wanted anyway.

The living deserve attention, too

Like a medical procedure,' Ruth said. 'Intricate surgery is needed to patch up the planet.

I have never been shy about listening to the input of others and weighing it seriously.

In my 20s, I railed against anything 'spiritual', I thought it was all crap.

I left my mark on that man.

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

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

One thing about failing repeatedly: If you're still doing it after you've failed that much, you really mean it.

I dont think ignorance is a way that you gain distance on something.

Part of the creative process for me is an invitation for readers to follow their imagination.

I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.

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.

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.

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.

I would do exactly what you are doing: I would talk to everyone I needed to, I would not tell too many people his name. When I was sure," she said, "I would find a quiet way, and I would kill him.

But also I wanted him to go away and leave me be. I was granted one weak grace. Back in the room where the green chair was still warm from his body, I blew that lonely, flickering candle out

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

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

Please don't let Daddy die Susie," he whispered. "I need him.

I watched my brother and my father. The truth was very different from what we learned in school. The truth was the line between the living and the dead could be, it seemed, murky and blurred.

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. ~pg 254

The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: "booze affects material as it does people.

As if in the other side of his kiss there could ve a new life

He would find his Susie,inside his young son. Give that love to the living.

When I was raped I lost my virginity and almost lost my life. I also discarded certain assumptions I had held about how the world worked and about how safe I was.

but, he also said it because part of him wanted more of her, this cold woman who was not exactly cold, this rock who was not stone.

Every day a question mark.

People grow up by living.

I'm fine with whatever comes my way, and whatever doesn't come my way I'm fine with too. I have a very laissez-faire attitude with the whole thing.

I'm just a friendly bystander who they occasionally ask questions of. That's my level of involvement.

It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.