Quotes from She's Come Undone

Wally Lamb ·  465 pages

Rating: (278.6K votes)


“Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“I know it's a crock of shit. I ain't offering you happily-ever-after. I'm offering you... happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts and shit." -Thayer”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone



“It was a matter of perspective, I began to see.
The whole world was crazy; I'd flattered myself by assuming I was a semifinalist."
-- Dolores Price”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Life seemed nearest to acceptable at four A.M.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“This was what could happen to you: you could end up this far from where you thought you were going.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“I thought about how love was always the thing that did that - smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone



“He's splitting me open, I thought. He'll break me and then I'll die.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Here is a girl who is pretty in a quiet way. I bet she's had a very sad life.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“He was right. And he was an insensitive shit.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone



“Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died...They're with me still. They're here...”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Who gets the change?" the clerk asked. "You or...your fella?"
Oh, he's not my boyfriend," I said. "He's my mother.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Fuck you, I said."
Uh-oh. There's that angry word.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone



“Life's a shit sandwich, my ass. Life's a polka and don't you forget it!”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“She preferred to get high on life.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“You're just catching me during one of my fallow periods, that's all. One of my compost years. I'm expecting a creative leap pretty soon now.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“She's got a certain feisty charm for a racist. Not to mention all those great dead-animal stories.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“What if I don’t like adventure?
Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone



“Well, get used to it, the whole world is nuts.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Only there's two sides to every story, you know. You just remember that.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy: he had been a shitty father and a shitty husband - a man who's made two bad choices based on lust and coveting and then been too weak either to live with them or undo them. But he had not been a rapist.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


“Just don't ever let it happen to you, Dolores. Let people just shit all over you. Don't you ever become some man's personal toilet that way I did.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone


About the author

Wally Lamb
Born place: in Norwich, Connecticut, The United States
Born date October 17, 1950
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Popular quotes

“–Beatriz se llevó mi nariz, en un desliz.”
― James Dashner, quote from The Maze Runner Series


“WHY THE SEA IS SALT Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and begged him, in God's name, to give him something for Christmas Day. It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give something to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than he generally was. "If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham," said he. The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this. "Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man's Hall," said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him. "Well, I will do what I have promised," said the other, and he took the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light. "I have no doubt this is the place," thought the man with the ham. An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse, chopping Yule logs. "Good-evening," said the man with the ham. "Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?" said the man. "I am going to Dead Man's Hall, if only I am on the right track," answered the poor man. "Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here," said the old man. "When you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they don't get much meat to eat there; but you must not sell it unless you can get the hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When you come out again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which is useful for almost everything." So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and rapped at the door. When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on an ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham. "By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas dinner, but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just give it up to you," said the man. "But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which is standing there behind the door." At first they would not hear of this, and haggled and bargained with the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were forced to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into the yard, he asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and when he had learned that, he thanked him and set off home with all the speed he could, but did not get there until after the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book


“He had never once felt itchy, in the way that two connecting pieces of a jigsaw never felt itchy, as far as one could tell. If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say. 'You're a bit of telephone box, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Juliet, Naked


“Phillip muttered something under his breath.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"You said something."
He gave her an impatient look. "If I'd meant for you to hear it, I would have said it out loud."
She sucked in her breath. "Then you shouldn't have said it at all."
"Some things," Phillip muttered, "are impossible to keep inside."
"What did yousay?" she demanded.
Phillip raked his hand through his hair. "Eloise—"
"Did you insult me?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Since it appears we are to be wed," she bit off, "yes."
"I don't recall my exact words," Phillip shot back, "but I believe I may have uttered the wordswomen
andlack of sense in
the same breath.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from To Sir Phillip, With Love


“Are you coming now?" Griffin snapped.

Karl glanced over at him and smiled. "What's the magic word?"

Griffin stalked off, muttering a word under his breath.

"That's not it," Karl called after him.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Personal Demon


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