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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