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Alice Sebold

Alice Sebold Quotes

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Famous Alice Sebold Quotes

“A lot of people ask questions that they don't want to answer themselves, and if we're honest about the intimacy that we have with our parents, you wish them the best and you wish them the worst more than anybody else in the world. I think everyone has had a moment in their life where they wished a parent ill, and I think it's perhaps a very romantic idea that that doesn't happen.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldWantIdeasMomentsHappensAsksWishParentAnswersWorstHonestIllIntimacyVery Romantic
Author:Alice Sebold
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“His love for my mother wasn't about looking back and loving something that would never change. It was about loving my mother for everything -- for her brokenness and her fleeing, for her being there right then in that moment before the sun rose and the hospital staff came in. It was about touching that hair with the side of his fingertip, and knowing yet plumbing fearlessly the depths of her ocean eyes.”

MomentsEyeMotherSidesSunKnowingHairOceanRoseDepthThat MomentHospitalsTouchingLooking BackStaffHis LoveNever ChangeBeing ThereBrokennessFingertipsFleeingPlumbingLove For My MotherLoving Something
Book:The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic
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“My father had not been outside the house except to drive back and forth to work or sit out in the backyard, for months, nor had he seen his neighbors. Now he looked at them, from face to face, until he realized I had been loved by people he didn't even recognize. His heart filled up, warm again as it had not been in what seemed so long to him- save small forgotten moments with Buckley, the accidents of love that happened with his son. ~pgs 209-210; Buckley, Lindsey and Jack on Susie”

PeopleHeartLongMomentsFacesFatherHouseHappenedSonMonthsFilledForgottenWarmAccidentsNeighborBack And ForthFace To FaceBackyardsFilled UpHeart Filled
Book:The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic
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“My grandmother stepped back into the kitchen to get their drinks. I had come to love her more after death than I ever had on Earth. I wish I could say that in that moment in the kitchen she decided to quit drinking, but I now saw that drinking was a part of what made her who she was. If the worst of what she left on Earth was a legacy of inebriated support, it was a good legacy in my book. ~Susie's grandmother, Lynn pgs 315-316”

IfsMadeBookMomentsEarthLeftWishSupportSawsWorstDrinkDecidedDrinkingQuittingLegacyKitchenGrandmotherThat MomentMy GrandmotherAfter DeathQuit Drinking
Author:Alice Sebold
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“I knew something as I watched: almost everyone was saying goodbye to me. I was becoming one of the many little-girl-losts. They would go back to their homes and put me to rest, a letter from the past never to be reopened or reread. And I could say goodbye to them, wish them well, bless them somehow for their good thoughts. A handshake in the street, a dropped item picked up and retrieved and handed back, or a friendly wave from the distant window, a nod, a smile, a moment when the eyes lock over the antics of a child.”

WellsChildrenLittlesMomentsHomeEyePastGirlLostWishStreetsBecomingWindowLettersWaveGoodbyeFriendlyBlessLocksItemsSaying GoodbyeGood ThoughtsHandshakeBecoming OneAntics
Author:Alice Sebold
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“Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.”

WorldStillsMomentsFatherWaitingSeaBlueRaisedShipsTensionStringsThat MomentBottlesBurnedRecognizingMastsWait For HimLovely Bones
Book:The Lovely Bones: Picador Classic
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“It was Buckley, as my father and sister joined the group and listened to Grandma Lynn’s countless toasts, who saw me. He saw me standing under the rustic colonial clock and stared. He was drinking champagne. There were strings coming out from all around me, reaching out, waving in the air. Someone passed him a brownie. He held it in his hand but did not eat. He saw my shape and face, which had not changed-the hair still parted down the middle, the chest still flat and hips undeveloped-and wanted to call out my name. It was only a moment, and then I was gone.”

StillsMomentsHandsWantedFacesFatherNamesGoneSawsGroupsAirMiddleChangedHairShapesStandingDrinkingHipsClockReachingFlatsStringsChestsComing OutReach OutGrandmaChampagneToastsBrowniesRusticDrinking Champagne
Author:Alice Sebold
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“She was unaware that she was somewhat of a celebrity up in heaven. I had told people about her, what she did, how she observed moments of silence up and down the city and wrote small individual prayers in her journal, and the story had travelled so quickly that women lined up to know she had found where they’d been killed. She had fans in heaven..... Meanwhile, for us, she was doing important work, work that most people on Earth were too frightened even too contemplate.”

PeopleKnowsImportantMomentsStoriesEarthFoundIndividualHeavenPrayerCitiesSilenceFansFrightenedContemplatingJournalUp And DownImportant WorkMoment Of Silence
Author:Alice Sebold
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