Quotes from Reconstructing Amelia

“Sometimes its hard to tell how fast the current's moving until you're headed over a waterfall”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been counting the minutes until I could forgive her. But it's a lot harder to forgive someone who's not looking to apologize.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Everyone has beacons. Lights that guide them home.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“...[T]here's a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“But some things you can't outrun, no matter how fast you move your legs.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“But it’s a lot harder to forgive someone who’s not looking to apologize.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil,”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Because there are 176 definitions for the word loser on urbandictionary.com.

Don't Be a Statistic.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Clothes were to Sylvia what books were to me: the only thing that really mattered.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“...[E]ven I know that being a parent is awful ninety-five percent of the time...As far as I can tell, it's that last five percent that keeps the human race from dying out. Four parts blinding terror, one part perfection. It's like mainlining heroin. One taste of life on that edge and you're hooked.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“But the tour did remind me that my life had been bigger than just that one moment. One girl. One set of words on paper. That I had gone through other things before-good and terrible, funny and awful-and I had survived.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“It was too late to change anything. Too late to make different choices. To be a better mother than she had been. Kate could only be the mother that she was, Amelia’s mother—the curator of her memory, the keeper of her secrets, the cherisher of her heart. That, she would always be.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“One of the things that was great about my mom, as a mom, was that she always knew when she was being kind of ridiculous.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“She had a wildness tucked inside her that made her seem fun and unpredictable and just a little tiny bit dangerous. Of course, it was also the exact same thing that eventually ended up driving the boys away. After all, there’s a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell how fast the current’s moving until you’re headed over a waterfall.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“we're teenagers," Sylvia said. "we're all depressed.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Simple, Kate wanted to say. I'm already dead.
Instead, she'd pressed her lips together so hard it made her eyes water as she'd grabbed her prescriptions. The ones her therapist had assured her would help with the nausea and the insomnia. In reality, they'd nothing except make her feel as if she were underwater. Kate kept taking them in the hope she might eventually drown.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“She had a wildness tucked inside her that made her seem fun and unpredictable and just a little tiny bit dangerous.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Articles about things weren't the same thing as stories I'd made up. Those I wasn't ready for the world to pick apart, not yet.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“sure I can handle waiting for more bad news.” “I know, Kate, and I’m sorry.” His voice”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Simple" Kate had wanted to say, "I'm already dead.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Good luck is not the same thing as wise counsel.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“No one wanted to talk to a mother whose only child had just killed herself.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Staying home ended up being easier said than done. Kate had spent the first days after Amelia’s death surrounded by her three closest friends from college. They’d swooped in and propped her upright, had seen to it that she ate and bathed and breathed.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Well, if it’s for a paper, then my honest answer is that I think sororities are bad. I think they’re terrible, actually. I think they make girls feel awful about themselves under the guise of sisterhood.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“But some things you can’t outrun, no matter how fast you move your legs.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“After all, there’s a fine line between wild and full-on whack job.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

“Certainly she could never have exchanged pleasantries with anyone. What would there be for them to say anyway? Sorry? Sorry your daughter is dead, Sorry your daughter jumped off the roof of her school when you were on your way to pick her up. Sorry you were late. Too bad you'll be reliving that failure for the rest of your miserable life.”
― Kimberly McCreight, quote from Reconstructing Amelia

About the author

Popular quotes

“When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, quote from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“The alley is a pitch for about twenty women leaning in doorways, chain-smoking. In their shiny open raincoats, short skirts, cheap boots, and high-heeled shoes they watch the street with hooded eyes, like spies in a B movie. Some are young and pretty, and some are older, and some of them are very old, with facial expressions ranging from sullen to wry. Most of the commerce is centred on the slightly older women, as if the majority of the clients prefer experience and worldliness. The younger, prettier girls seem to do the least business, apparent innocence being only a minority preference, much as it is for the aging crones in the alley who seem as if they’ve been standing there for a thousand years.

In the dingy foyer of the hotel is an old poster from La Comédie Française, sadly peeling from the all behind the desk. Cyrano de Bergerac, it proclaims, a play by Edmond Rostand. I will stand for a few moments to take in its fading gaiety. It is a laughing portrait of a man with an enormous nose and a plumed hat. He is a tragic clown whose misfortune is his honour. He is a man entrusted with a secret; an eloquent and dazzling wit who, having successfully wooed a beautiful woman on behalf of a friend cannot reveal himself as the true author when his friend dies. He is a man who loves but is not loved, and the woman he loves but cannot reach is called Roxanne.

That night I will go to my room and write a song about a girl. I will call her Roxanne. I will conjure her unpaid from the street below the hotel and cloak her in the romance and the sadness of Rostand’s play, and her creation will change my life.”
― Sting, quote from Broken Music

“nothing is stranger to man than his own image”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.

“In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak?”
― Carl Sagan, quote from Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“It makes people feel good to build somethin big. Makes people feel like they're makin progress, I reckon.
Progress toward what?
It doesn't matter. Up higher or down deeper or out farther. As long as you're movin, it don't matter much where you're goin or what's chasin you. That's why they call it progress. It keeps goin of it's own accord.”
― Alden Bell, quote from The Reapers are the Angels

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.