Quotes from After

Amy Efaw ·  350 pages

Rating: (18.5K votes)


“In case you didn't know, dead people don't bleed. If you can bleed-see it, feel it-then you know you're alive. It's irrefutable, undeniable proof. Sometimes I just need a little reminder.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“She can paint a pretty picture but this story has a twist. The paintbrush is a razor and the canvas is her wrist.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“Just because you don't say much doesn't mean people don't notice you. It's actually the quiet ones who often draw the most attention. There's this constant whirlwind of motion and sound all around, and then there's the quiet one, the eye of the storm.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“A pattern of raised crisscrossed scars, some old and white, others more recent in various shades of pink and red. Exposing the stress of the structure underneath its paint”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“And wishes, truly wishes, that she could say the same herself. Because hurting herself would be so much easier.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After



“She can paint a lovely picture, but this story has a twist. her paintbrush is a razor, and her canvas is her wrist.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“Devon had been so lonely, so terribly lonely, for so long. The kind of lonely that sears, that burrows its way deep inside a heart and throbs. Like a gnawing hunger.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“My mind/a twist of clutter/ as i lie in bed imagining my life/ I watch the shadows on the ceiling./Memories sail across my eyes. / I need courage to see them. / I fight with myself/But then I close my eyes to the twilight/ And release myself to sleep.

The scars you can't see are the hardest to heal.


I'd rather be lucky than good. Good is just so overrated. Bad girls have the most fun.

A fool empties his head every time he opens his mouth”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“The woman types everything into her computer, raising her eyebrows slightly at Devon's middle name. "Devon Sky Davenport," she repeats. "Sky? S-k-y?"
"Yes," Devon says, addressing the back of the computer monitor rather than the woman's face directly. "S-k-y. As in"---she swallows---"as in, 'the sky's the limit.'"
But Devon doesn't volunteer any further explanation, doesn't explain to the women the story behind the name. That, in fact, "the sky's the limit" is how Devon's mom has always defined Devon and her supposed potential in life. Her mom would say it when Devon brought home a flawless report card or when Devon received a stellar postseason evaluation from her coach or when a complete stranger commented on Devon's exceptional manners or after the Last Loser packed his stuff and walked out. "You'll be Somebody for both of us," her mom would say.
Not anymore, Mom. Everything's changed. Now, for me, "the sky" isn't anything but flat and gray and too far away to ever reach. She takes a deep breath. If you were here with me, you'd see it for yourself.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“She had crept away from his bed, leaving him asleep across the jumbled sheets. She'd closed the bathroom door softly behind her. Standing naked before the mirror, she'd stared at the girl she saw there. At the disheveled hair and smeared mascara and lips that he'd kissed. Slowly shaking her head at the image in the mirror, the thought played over and over in her mind like a scratched track on a CD: Why? Why did you do it? Why did you let it happen? Then she'd turned away, covered her face with her hands, and cried. She would never again be the same person. She'd been irreversibly changed.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After



“Devon? Are you okay?" For the first time, Dom's voice sounds unsure.
Devon sats nothing, not one word. She pushes herself up. She slides the papers toward herself. She slowly folds them into quarters. She closes her hand around them.
Devon lifts her face to Dom's.
Is she "okay"?
Will she ever, ever be okay?”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“Her keeper jersey; she thinks of it now. The number 1 on its back. A lonely number. Only one goalkeeper on the field. Only one player who guards the net. Only one who stands strong and alone behind the other ten players on the field. No place to hide. No way to disappear.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


“Devon stares at him standing there, remembering the only other guy had ever opened a car door for her.
Last summer. The sky was bright blue mirroring the water, the sun warm. A perfect day. He had smiled down at her; he'd That Look in his eyes- warm and eager and a little bit vulnerable. When he'd look at her in that way, and smile that tilted smile, her body would tingle with an electric tension that robbed her breath away.
That was then. And now?
Now she is here.”
― Amy Efaw, quote from After


About the author

Amy Efaw
Born place: Oak Park, IL, The United States
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Popular quotes

“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Julius Caesar


“The front door flew open, and Mary shot out of the house, jumping off the porch, not even bothering with the steps to the ground. She ran over the frost-laden grass in her bare feet and threw herself at him, grabbing on to his neck with both arms. She held him so tightly his spine cracked.

She was sobbing. Bawling. Crying so hard her whole body was shaking.

He didn't ask any questions, just wrapped himself around her.

I'm not okay," she said hoarsely between breaths. "Rhage...I'm not okay.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Eternal


“I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.

I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'

'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?

'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach...I couldn't read music.

'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft...'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”
― Abraham Verghese, quote from Cutting for Stone


“He loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Speaker for the Dead


“They yoked themselves to a car and drew her all the long way through dust and heat. Everyone admired their filial piety when they arrived and the proud and happy mother standing before the statue prayed that Hera would reward them by giving them the best gift in her power. As she finished her prayer the two lads sank to the ground. They were smiling and they looked as if they were peacefully asleep but they were dead. (Biton and Cleobis)”
― Edith Hamilton, quote from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes


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