Quotes from Fixing Delilah

Sarah Ockler ·  308 pages

Rating: (7.5K votes)


“I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn't trade one of them for a hundred of the other kind. I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people who aren't real. People who are just passing time.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“We all long for what could have been.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I‘ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I understand how easy it would be to lose yourself in the heart of another. It‘s frightening. Exhilarating. An ocean with no lifeguard.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



“It‘s complicated. I think when bad things happen—whether someone dies or people argue or split up—you get to a point where it‘s just too hard to go back. There‘s so much lost. So many versions of the truth. So many versions of how things might‘ve turned out differently. We all long for what could have been. For some people, it‘s just easier to move forward and try to forget.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I wonder how much we don‘t see. How much of our lives we witness and accept as truth when the rest of the iceberg—the heaviest, bulkiest part—is buried and invisible.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I remember the feeling even now; an inescapable stickines of each other like magnets on the fridge. It's funny how someone can be such an integral part of your life, like you laugh at the same jokes and eat your ice cream cones the same way and share your toys and dreams and everything but your heartbeats, and then one day - nothing. You share nothing. It's like none of it ever happened.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“Are we all on the same page, Delilah?
The same page? I don't even think we're even in the same library, but no need to bring that up.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“Doesn't matter how many people are in the crowd anymore, Delilah. Ten or ten thousand, I'm still only singing for one.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



“you can‘t promise yourself that you‘re not going to fall in love with someone. I‘m not exactly a relationship expert, but I don‘t think it works that way”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people aren't real.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I‘m not in love with him. I‘m in love with the way he erases things.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I take a deep breath,
count to ten,
and bury it,
way down deep”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“We have the ability to pass our memories on. We just have to tell them to someone.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



“I told him that I would love him with everything I had in me until the very end of everything, and I meant it.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they wouldn't all day long, but that never works.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“The only thing that's ours to accept is the fact that we don't always get to know the answers.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“surrounding us is an ocean of mess and misunderstanding, full of pirates and sharks just waiting to see who slips in first”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“Oh, so you're untouchable, huh, Delilah? You and your fucked-up relationship with your mother and everyone else in your life? Great. Does getting pissed at me make it better? does it fix ANYTHING?"
"You! Can't! Fix! Me!”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



“It got him killed, but at least he felt something.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“. . . how easily some things can be broken for good and for bad, and how some things, no matter how shattered, can still go back together. Like Moo, my family may never be as strong as it once was. There are chips and cracks and scars, But some of them can be repaired, piece by piece, rebuilt into something even more cherished and loved and unique.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“How can I fault her for trying to bury a truth that when exposed to air and sunlight could only hurt the ones she loves?”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I wonder how many loose buttons there are in this world, just rolling around in a jar without a mate or a blouse to go on. No purpose. Just siting there unnoticed. Forgotten.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“You know, when a person is murdered, you can miss that person and put all of your anger into hating the killer, even if you don‘t know who the killer is. You also have the choice of forgiveness. But when someone takes her own life, she is the killer.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



“Don't you ever see the bright side of things?" Patrick asks as I mope against the bottom of the ladder.
"Easy to see the bright side when you're getting paid by the hour."
"Delilah, I will gladly give you my fill wage plus a month's supply of your iced choco-nut whatever lattes if you trade places and clothes with my right now."
"You're not wearing a shirt."
"That's the deal, Hannaford," he says.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“I'm still dropping dishes thinking in slow motion about the GPS woman in Mom's car. I imagine her beckoning me from outside the kitchen window illuminated like some robot-angel calling me forth to the Lexus where she will ferry me off to that planet of monotonous peace that special otherworldly place where all the residents are relaxed and confident and completely numb.

Your life will. Get better in. Six. Point four. Million. Miles.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“We arrived in Vermont expecting to fix up the old lake house. But in the end, it was the house that fixed us.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“It was as though my heart made room for two truths that night—one real, the other safe and familiar and desirable.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah


“She makes her people work on Sundays?" Rachel whispers, pulling some of my grandmother's old food from he fridge and sniffing it.

"Nah-weekends are optional. They only have to work them if they want to keep their jobs.”
― Sarah Ockler, quote from Fixing Delilah



About the author

Sarah Ockler
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Popular quotes

“Ye came to me on the parapet. Was it to tempt me?” “It would take me the rest of the night to dry my clothes and hair and to warm my body- a little to extreme for sport. I thought you were going to jump. I wanted to prevent it if I could.” He almost laughed, until he saw her eyes glisten as she drew her cloak tightly about herself and turned toward the fire. “ I think you should go now. It will be daylight soon. I need to dry my hair and get out of these wet clothes.” “And would it bothered you if I had jumped?” She whirled around, her eyes flashing angrily. “Of course it would! I am not a hard-hearted wretch! You saved my life. I owe you a tremendous debt. How could I hope to gain anything by your death when you have treated me with every kindness and sheltered me in your home?” “Those are the only reasons?” She shrugged. “I like you. You are brave and strong, yet your heart is kind, your manner gentle, and you heart pure. You have a great future ahead of you. Your clan and your country need you. And I am indebted to you why would I want to watch you jump if I could prevent it?” – Isobella Douglas & Alysandir Mackinnon”
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“She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring--to strike--when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High.”
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