top of page
"I knew the eyes. I didn't know the Kraut, but yeah, I sure knew that look. I see it when I look in the mirror, even now. If you stay too long in the way, it's like your eyes try to get away, like they're sinking down, trying to hide, wary little animals crawling into the cave of your eye socket."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Trauma quotes

"His abusemakes her an anvilwithout spark."

"The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture."

"It took me years to stop feeling the guilt she made sure I kept feeling about what happened with him. He is a sick person that molests children, but I felt so bad about it for so long. I couldn't talk to a single person about any of this. No one. And she made me feel so bad about it all that I felt I shouldn't talk about it, even if there was someone. I felt ashamed and thought I was an awful person. Sometimes I still do. My mother abandoned me in the worst ways possible."

"Women formed from black smoke come to me at night and they scream for me to not cut their throats or twist those tiny necks. They beg and cry. Then right at the moment when I can't take anymore, I rush up to them, slashing at the smoke with my hands. Do they go away? Never. They turn into familiar faces."

"Tana would sit near the door to the basement with fingers in her ears, tears and snot running down her face as she cried and cried and cried. And little Pearl would toddle up, crying, too. They cried while they ate their cereal, cried while they watched cartoons, and cried themselves to sleep at night, huddled together in Tana's little bed. 'Make her stop' Pearl said, but Tana couldn't."
Explore more quotes by Michael Grant

"Edilio is in hiding, Astrid snapped. "Edilio has to worry about being kicked out of the country. Our Edilio."He's got a volunteer lawyer-But Astrid wasn't done. "They should be putting up statues to Edilio. They should be naming schools after that boy-no, no, I'm not going to call him a boy. If he's not a man, then I'll never meet one.Lana nodded approvingly, obviously enjoying and sharing in Astrid's outrage."

"No, no, no, so not getting the point of fear. Because fear wasn't about what made sense. Fear was about possibilities. Not things that happened. Things that might."

"God knew our lives would be really bad sometimes. Like maybe we'd be turned into a monster and then our best friend would get killed. So he made up this story about hell, so we could always say, 'Well it could be worse. It could be hell.' And then we'd keep going."

"The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph."

"Too bad we don't have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire." Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio."

"We were girls, you see, not even women, just girls, most of us when we started. And the boys were just boys, not men, most of them. We'd only begun to live life, we knew little and understood less. We were unformed, incomplete. It's funny how easy it is to see that now. If you'd called me a child three years ago when this started I'd have been furious. But looking back? We were children just getting ready to figure out what adulthood was all about."
bottom of page