Quotes from Reconstructing Amelia

Kimberly McCreight ·  382 pages

Rating: (105.8K votes)


“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

Kimberly McCreight
Born place: in The United States
Born date September 20, 2018
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“A good government had to guide its people, sometimes gently, sometimes strictly, just as parents did. It could allow certain freedoms, but in a style that suited the country.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning


“I walk up and down the rows. The heads look like rubber halloween masks. They also look like human heads, but my brain has no precedent for human heads on tables or in roasting pans or anywhere other than on top of a human bodies, and so I think it has chosen to interpret the sight in a more comforting manner. - Here we are at the rubber mask factory. Look at the nice men and woman working on the masks.”
― Mary Roach, quote from Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers


“While dead men tell no tales, their corpses often speak volumes.”
― Douglas Preston, quote from Brimstone


“Where to look if you've lost your mind?”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Fixer


“I’m saying that I can wait. For now. But when things get back to normal—assuming that ever happens—I want my shot. We can make each other happy, Faythe. I know it. And I’m done walking away from things I want just because they don’t come easily. You’re worth the work.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Prey


Interesting books

A Child's Garden of Verses
(22.3K)
A Child's Garden of...
by Robert Louis Stevenson
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
(36.4K)
One Thousand Gifts:...
by Ann Voskamp
Bloodsucking Fiends
(54.3K)
Bloodsucking Fiends
by Christopher Moore
A Letter of Mary
(14.8K)
A Letter of Mary
by Laurie R. King
Excellent Women
(7.5K)
Excellent Women
by Barbara Pym
False Memory
(39.2K)
False Memory
by Dean Koontz

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.