Family of Liars

Not all pain is worth it,’ said Tipper. ‘Some pain is just pain.

Now that I am grown, I think don’t take no for an answer is a lesson we teach boys who would be better off learning that no means no.

Sometimes things are fragile. That's why they're valuable.

Telling this story will be painful. In fact, I do not know if I can tell it truthfully, though I'll try. I have been a liar all my life, you see. It's not uncommon in our family.

we need you' means my sisters love me, they rely on me, the admire me.

I don't even have my real face anymore, I don't even know who I see in the mirror.

She is a ghost climbing out of the sea, returning to the spot where no one loved her quite enough to keep her safe.

They're doing just as I asked them to. As we Sinclairs always do. Pretending. Lying. Trying to have a good time.

But my insides are made of seawater, warped wood, and rusty nails.

No one in this family can see what's right in front of them.

We can argue about it in hell.

I'd think of these images - people dying, a city drowning - instead of thinking about Rosemary, dying, drowning.

I do not love my father's way of thinking, but much of it has become mine.

but I also wanted to be seen and heard and recognized, truly, by another person.

It’s joy,’ said Tipper. ‘I aim to live a joyful life, Carrie. And I think you should, too. I think maybe you’ve lost track of that, a little.

I'm not sorry. For anything. At all.

It's better, I think, to move on. To look forward.

We can’t change what’s in the newspaper

The wise man doesn't give the right answers. He poses the right questions.

I walk a path of my parents’ making. I walk it the same way I walk the wooden walkways they’ve made that stretch across Beechwood. I do not see how to step off. If I exit the walkways into the bushes, under the trees, or onto the sand — it doesn’t matter. I am still on their island.

The idea is that we can be forgiven for terrible things we do as children.

I have been a liar all my life, you see. It's not uncommon in our family." "They're doing just as I asked them to. As we Sinclairs always do. Pretending. Lying. Trying to have a good time.

This is the only time I will ever tell, I say to myself.

But he talked like the kisses were sort of a joke, merely something fun to do so as not to waste the beauty of the evening and the drama of the landscape. pg. 91

I don’t want to be near [them] any longer than I have to, or see pictures of the little boy who grew up to think a girl’s body belonged to him just because he said please.

She is certain of her place in the world, oblivious, happy, better able just to love & be loved.

Be a little kinder than you have to be.

I want to be the kind of girl a guy would remember to meet. The kind of girl that boys will wait hours for.