Quotes from Life As We Knew It

“I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“We may not have a future, but you can't deny we have a past.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“What about desserts?" I asked. "If the world comes to an end, I'm going to want cookies.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Maybe I'm wrong," Mom said. "Maybe the world really is coming to an end."
"Should I try Fox News?" I asked.
Mom shuddered. "We're not that desperate," she said.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“What about desserts?" I asked. "If the world comes to an end, I'm going to want cookies."
"We're all going to want cookies if the world comes to an end," Mrs. Nesbitt agreed. "And chips and pretzels. If the world is coming to an end, why should I care about my blood pressure?"
"Okay, we'll die fat," Mom said.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“The only way you can be the best at something is to be the best you can be.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Here's the funny thing about the world coming to an end. Once it gets going, it doesn't seem to stop.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I have no privacy. But I feel so alone.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I feel myself shriveling along with my world, getting smaller and harder. I'm turning into a rock, and in some ways that's good, because rocks last forever.
But if this is how I'm going to last forever, then I don't want to.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Mom, is the world coming to an end?" Jonny asked, picking up the plate of cookies and ramming one into his mouth.
"No, it isn'T," Mom said, folding her lawn chair and carrying it to the front of the house. "And yes, you do have to go to school tomorrow.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“It wouldn't be New Year's without a resolution. I've resolved to take a moment every day for the rest of my life to appreciate what I have.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“They say asteroids hit the moon pretty often, which is how the moon gets its crater, but this one is going to be the biggest asteroid ever to hit it and on a clear night you should be able to see the impact when it happens, maybe even with the naked eye but certainly with binoculars. They made it sound pretty dramatic, but I still don't think it's worth three homework assignments.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“About 10 minutes ago, we all woke up because of this strange roaring sound. We all raced toward the sound, which turned out to be the washing machine going back on.
Who knew the rinse cycle could be so scary?”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“What's the point of God making us human if He doesn't want us to act like we're human?'
'To see if we can rise above our natures,'Megan said.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I wonder if I cry whether my tears would be gray.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“This morning the electricity came on for a few minutes, and when it did, Jonny said, "Hey, it's a black-on."
This is what passes for humor around here.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Matt looked up kids from his high school class. Only three were listed as dead, but a bunch were listed as missing/presumed dead.
As a test, he looked us up, but none of our names were on any of the lists.
And that's how we know we're alive this Memorial Day.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Great, the worlds coming to an end and we're fixing it with Band-Aids”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“Lisa's baby was due about now. I've decided she had it and it was a girl. I've named her Rachel.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“...when I came back, I found Mom sobbing at the kitchen table...Then I asked her what had happened.
'Nothing,'she said. 'I was thinking about that man...I started thinking about...if he and his wife and their other child are okay, and I don't know. It just got to me.'
'I know,' I said, because I did know. Sometimes it's safer to cry about people you don't know than to think about people you really love.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“But today when I am 17 and warm and well fed, I'm keeping this journal for myself so I can always remember life as we knew it, life as we know it, for a time when I am no longer in the sunroom.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I can't decide which is worse, no electricity or unreliable electricity.
I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“The electricity came on for the second time today wile we were eating.
This may be a fool's paradise, but it's a paradise nonetheless.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“The Christmas after Mom & Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dads apartment. I thought that was great. I was all in favor of my love being paid for with presents.

This year all I got was a diary and a secondhand watch.

Okay, I know this is corny, but this really is what Christmas is all about.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“I'm the one not caring. I'm the one pretending the Earth isn't shattering all around me because I don't want it to be. I don't want to know there was an earthquake in Missouri. I don't want to know the Midwest can die, also, that what's going on isn't just tides and tsunamis. I don't want to have any more to be afraid of.

I didn't start this diary for it to be a record of death.”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

“People see what they want to see”
― Susan Beth Pfeffer, quote from Life As We Knew It

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Popular quotes

“If the Holy Ghost judged the state of the Jewish Church to be weak and imperfect - because it rested on high priests that died one after another, although their succession was expressly ordained of God himself - shall we suppose that the Lord Christ, who came to consummate the church, and to bring it unto the most perfect estate whereof in this world it is capable, should build it on a succession of dying men, concerning which succession there is not the least intimation that it is appointed of God? And as unto the matter of fact, we know both what interruptions it hath received, and what monsters it hath produced - both sufficiently manifesting that it is not of God.”
― John Owen, quote from The Glory of Christ

“And the things we girls need because no one wants to run out of those supplies in the middle of a blizzard.”
― Anne Bishop, quote from Marked in Flesh

“Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee's for closers only.”
― David Mamet, quote from Glengarry Glen Ross

“...it's better to wake up amid the pangs of desire than amid those of remorse.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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