Quotes from Testimony

Anita Shreve ·  320 pages

Rating: (25.2K votes)


“And so a person can never promise to love someone forever because you never know what might come up, what terrible thing the person you love might do.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“A single action can cause a life to veer off in a direction it was never meant to go. Falling in love can do that, you think. And so can a wild party. You marvel at the way each has the power to forever alter an individual's compass. And it is the knowing that such a thing can so easily happen, as you did not know before, not really, that has fundamentally changed you and your son.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“I guess that's the point of drinking, to take all the feelings and thoughts and morals away until you are just a body doing what a body will do.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“If one has a good reputation and trusted, the rules can be bent to accommodate.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“His arrival detonated two sheepdogs that began barking even before they emerged at a dead run from behind the garage. ”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony



“I discover that it is possible to be angry with someone who has died. It is possible to hate yourself for being angry with someone who has died. It is possible to believe that you will die from grief, that somehow your breathing will catch itself up and simply stop. It is possible to believe that you could have stopped the terrible thing that happened at any time, if only you had known.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“The lying started in the eighth grade. Possibly it had begun earlier, and I simply hadn’t noticed.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


“If you suspect a problem, there is a problem. Don’t let them get away with even the very first lie. Be vigilant.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Testimony


About the author

Anita Shreve
Born place: in Dedham, Massachusetts
Born date October 7, 1946
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Popular quotes

“Dear Anyone: This is a letter from one anyone to another anyone, no names required, because nobody really knows anyway. Names don't make a hell of a lot of difference. The world is made up entirely of strangers. Millions and millions of them. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else. Sometimes we think we know other people, especially those we supposedly are close to, but if we really knew them, why are we so often surprised by the shit they do? Like, parents are always surprised by what their kids will do. They raise them from the time they are babies, spend each and every day with them, think they're these goddamn fucking angels, and then one day the cops come to the door and say hey, guess what parents? Your kid just bashed some other kid's head in with a baseball bat. Or you're the kid, and you think things are pretty fucking OK, and then one day this guy who's supposed to be your dad says so long, have a nice life. And you think, what the fuck is this? So years later, your mom ends up living with another guy, and he seems OK, but you think, when's it coming? That's what life is. Life is always asking yourself, when's it coming? Because if it hasn't come for a long time, you know you're fucking due. All the best, Anyone.”
― Linwood Barclay, quote from No Time for Goodbye


“Theirs was not a marriage that could last. Madeleine had never loved him. She was telling him that. 'It's painful to have to say I never loved you. I never will love you, either,' she said. 'So there's no point in going on.'

Herzog said, 'I do love you, Madeleine.'

Step by step, Madeleine rose in distinction, in brilliance, in insight. Her color grew very rich, and her brows, and that Byzantine nose of hers, rose, moved; her blue eyes gained by the flush that kept deepening, rising from her chest and her throat. She was in an esctasy of consciousness. It occurred to Herzog that she had beaten him so badly, her pride was so fully satisfied, that there was an overflow of strength into her intelligence. He realized that he was witnessing one of the very greatest moments of her life.”
― Saul Bellow, quote from Herzog


“This isn’t how I imagined our lives would be when I was Queen of Libya and you King of Armenia.”
― Michelle Moran, quote from Cleopatra's Daughter


“You give me a great desire to love.”
― Marguerite Duras, quote from Hiroshima Mon Amour


“La vita é una tale fatica, bambino. E una guerra che si ripete ogni giorno, e i suoi momenti di gioia sono parentesi brevi che si pagano un prezzo crudele.”
― Oriana Fallaci, quote from Letter to a Child Never Born


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