Quotes from Torn Away

“I realized that the worst part of someone you love dying suddenly isn't the saying good-bye part. It's the part where you hope you said and did enough good stuff to make up for the bad stuff. It's the part where there are no second chances, no going back, no more opportunities to tell them how you feel about them.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“I've been thinking a lot about the word "everything." Whenever something horrible happens, you hear people say they "lost everything." They lost their house or their car or their stuff or whatever, and to them it feels like everything. But they have no idea what it's like to lose everything. I thought I knew, but now I realize even I haven't lost everything, because I still have that polka-dot swimsuit in my memory. I still have those ice cream nights and the scorpion that scared Marin and the Barking Bulldogs sweatshirt and the robins-egg-blue nail polish. Somehow having those things makes the other things matter less.

I'm wondering if it's even possible to lose "everything" or if you just have to keep redefining what "everything" is.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“Growing up, we were taught over and over again what steps to take in case of an approaching tornado. Listen for sirens, go to your basement or cellar, or a closet in the center of your house, duck and cover, wait it out. We had drills twice a year, every year, in school. We talked about it in class. We talked about it at home. The newscasters reminded us. We went to the basement. We practiced, practiced, practiced.

But we’d never— not once— discussed what to do after.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“It was one thing to lose the people you love. That happens to everybody. But it was another thing to lose them because you just... faded away.

I didn't want to fade away.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“...But would that be enough? Because at the moment it felt like it could never be enough. People needed more than a place to stay, more than a porch to sleep on. They needed a home, right? They needed love.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“But it was too much. All of it was too much. I didn't know what I was feeling, but I knew I needed some time alone, some space to think about everything.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“Welcome to the Midwest, Mom used to say. Where the weather keeps you guessing and you're almost always sure to hate it.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“Nobody was coming to rescue me. Nobody was going to keep me safe. It was all up to me now.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“I thought everything I knew about you might have been a lie, but since meeting him and your parents, I've realized that the parts of you I knew weren't untrue; they were only part-truths. There were lots of things about you that I didn't know, and learning those things has actually been comforting in a way. They make me feel closer to you. And I can see that actually there's one real truth, and that is you loved me enough to do anything it took to protect me. I think that's something I've known my whole life. I'm thankful for it.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“I realized that the worst part of someone you love dying suddenly isn't the saying goodbye part. It's the part where you wonder if they knew how much you loved them. It's the part where you hope you said and did enough good stuff to make up for the bad stuff. It's the part where there are no second chances, no going back, no more opportunities to tell them how you feel about them.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“I had so much going on in my heart, and it didn't often go together or make sense or even stay the same from moment to moment. How did I speak from a heart that didn't undersand itself?”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. What did it matter? What did anything matter now? I was alone. I had no home, no family, nowhere that I belonged. In that moment, I finally and truly understood what it meant to have nothing to lose.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

“After he left, I tried not to let my mind wander, tried not to think about the small things I'd lot in the tornado especially not with Mrs. Dempsey covered by a shower curtain a couple houses down, but I couldn't help myself. My clothes, my earrings, my music. Granted, I didn't have trendy clothes or expensive earrings, but if it had all blown away...I had nothing. Even a few cheap somethings is better than nothing.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Torn Away

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Popular quotes

“In a society of free men the preservation of life and health are ends, not means. They do not enter into any process of accounting means.”
― Ludwig von Mises, quote from Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

“Nothing is permanent in my mysterious world, even my moments of belief - Jenifer”
― Durgesh Satpathy, quote from Equating the Equations of Insanity: A Journey from Grief to Victory

“Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."

"Yes, sir," Andrews said.

"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you--that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."

"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."

"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet....look. You spend nearly a year of your life and sweat, because you have faith in the dream of a fool. And what have you got? Nothing. You kill three, four thousand buffalo, and stack their skins neat; and the buffalo will rot wherever you left them, and the rats will nest in the skins. What have you got to show? A year gone out of your life, a busted wagon that a beaver might use to make a dam with, some calluses on your hands, and the memory of a dead man."

"No," Andrew said. "That's not all. That's not all I have."

"Then what? What have you got?"

Andrews was silent.

"You can't answer. Look at Miller. Knows the country he was in as well as any man alive, and had faith in what he believed was true. What good did it do him? And Charley Hoge with his Bible and his whisky. Did that make your winter any easier, or save your hides? And Schneider. What about Schneider? Was that his name?

"That was his name," Andrews said.

"And that's all that's left of him," McDonald said. "His name. And he didn't even come out of it with that for himself." McDonald nodded, not looking at Andrews. "Sure, I know. I came out of it with nothing, too. Because I forgot what I learned a long time ago. I let the lies come back. I had a dream, too, and because it was different from yours and Miller's, I let myself think it wasn't a dream. But now I know, boy. And you don't. And that makes all the difference.”
― John Williams, quote from Butcher's Crossing

“No matter what your profession – doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant – if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer.”
― quote from The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

“You see, art makes people think. Blok didn't want people to think. If that happened, they might have realized what was actually happening.”
― D.J. MacHale, quote from The Quillan Games

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