Quotes from What I Saw and How I Lied

“But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough.
But I was tougher.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I loved him like a fever. Then he left. He kicked through love like it was dust and he kept on walking.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I drove in last night,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep, it was too hot. So I went outside. I was feeling melancholy. Then I danced with a beautiful girl, and I felt better. What's your story?”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I understood the word 'swoon'. It felt that way, like 'sweep' and 'moon' and 'woo', all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Truth, justice...I always thought they were absolutes, like God. And Mom. And apple pie.
But you could make apple pie from Ritz crackers. You could make cakes without sugar. We learned how to fake things, during the war.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Loss.
Thats what it was, a hole I could never fill. It would be bottomless.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“It had never occurred to me that I could do something without permission. 'May I' was a way of life for a girl like me.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I took off one of the high-heeled sandals, the white sandals my mother prized, and threw it into the pool. That's when I noticed him. He was on the other side of the pool, dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants. He had lowered the chair until it was flat, and he was lying back on it, face to the night sky, smoking a cigarette. He raised himself on his elbows and looked at the pool like he owned it. "Well?" he said. I didn't say anything... "Aren't you going to let the other shoe drop?" I took off the other one and threw it in. "My kind of women," he said.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Darling, I have a tip," Arlene said. "Never, ever wait for a man.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I breathed in and out, perfume and smoke, perfume and smoke, and we lay like that for a long time, until I heard the seagulls crying, sadder than a funeral, and I knew it was almost morning.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“You're a watcher, aren't you?" Peter said. "I can tell. You watch and listen. But you know what I'm betting. The thing you can't see so clear is yourself." I was startled. Here I was, trying to come up with something to say about the weather, and he said something real. "What do you mean?" I asked. "You don't walk like a girl who knows how pretty she is, for one thing. That's a crying shame.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Could it really happen like this?" he asked. "That a girl like you can make me feel..." "Make you feel what?" "Make me feel," he said.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I don't have a story," I said. "I'm still waiting for one.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Baby, I was in a war. Of course I get it. That's where all the bad in the world comes from. Guys who like being mean. I was that guy once. We were all that guy, for at least a minute. We had to be.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“But I do know," he continued, "how to salvage an evening for a girl in a party dress." He stood up, bowed. Held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"
"Here?”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Just one dance. Just one. That’s all I wanted. I know now how you can take one step and you can’t stop yourself from taking another. I know now what it means to want. I know it can get you to a place where there’s no way out. I know now that there’s no such thing as just one. But I didn’t know it then.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“What did I owe you, Peter? Truth and justice? If judges would judge, if lawyers wouldn’t trick, if reporters would tell what really happened instead of what sold papers. Fat”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I assume you're a refugee from the dance inside." "I escaped the enemy, captain," I said. I could see the side of his, and his smile. "Ah," he said. "At long last, a promotion.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“I let Wally go yesterday,” Mr. Forney said. “I just want you to know that.” “You fired him?” “Of course. Fraternizing with hotel guests is cause for dismissal.” “But—” “We have high standards for the hotel, Miss Spooner. That includes employees.” “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen your high standards up close, Mr. Forney. I think you like rolling in your stinky high standards. Especially when you can kick a couple of guests out of the hotel because they have the wrong last name.” He”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“May I" was a way of life for a girl like me.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Darling, I have a tip. Never, ever wait for a man.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“So here I was. I would live with Joe and Mom. I had no place else to go. Joe would carve the roast on Sundays. He would put up the Christmas tree.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“The world is full of places I haven't been.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“On every shopping trip, there is one indulgence.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“That's where all the bad in the world comes from. Guys who like being mean.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Being an adult--was this it? Doing the thing you most in your life didn't want to do, and doing it with a shrug?”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

“Are you running away?"
"No, not today.”
― Judy Blundell, quote from What I Saw and How I Lied

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Popular quotes

“Honey, have you seen my measuring tape?”
“I think it’s in that drawer in the kitchen with the scissors, matches, bobby pins, Scotch tape, nail clippers, barbecue tongs, garlic press, extra buttons, old birthday cards, soy sauce packets thick rubber bands, stack of Christmas napkins, stained take-out menus, old cell-phone chargers, instruction booklet for the VCR, some assorted nickels, an incomplete deck of cards, extra chain links for a watch, a half-finished pack of cough drops, a Scrabble piece I found while vacuuming, dead batteries we aren’t fully sure are dead yet, a couple screws in a tiny plastic bag left over from the bookshelf, that lock with the forgotten combination, a square of carefully folded aluminum foil, and expired pack of gum, a key to our old house, a toaster warranty card, phone numbers for unknown people, used birthday candles, novelty bottle openers, a barbecue lighter, and that one tiny little spoon.”
“Thanks, honey.”
AWESOME!”
― Neil Pasricha, quote from The Book of (Even More) Awesome

“The globby aliens went a very pale green. The pirates, shiny-black-hair-men, and the piranhas looked at them puzzled, seeking some kind of explanation, as did the wumpires.

"If two things that are the same thing touch," proclaimed the volcano god, "then the whole Universe shall end. Thus sayeth the great and unutterable Splod."

"How does a volcano know so much about transtemporal meta-science?" asked one of the pale green aliens.

"Being a geological formation gives you a lot of time to think," said Splod. "Also, I subscribe to a number of learned journals.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Fortunately, the Milk

“To understand what Jesus accomplished and how he paid with his life, we have to understand what was happening around him. His was a time when Rome dominated the Western world and brooked no dissent. Human life was worth little. Life expectancy was less than forty years, and far less if you happened to anger the Roman powers that were. An excellent description of the time was written—perhaps with some bombast—by journalist Vermont Royster in 1949: There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar … what was man for but to serve Caesar? There was persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world? Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God … so the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe that salvation lay with the leaders. But it came to pass for a while in diverse places that the truth did set men free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light.”
― Bill O'Reilly, quote from Killing Jesus: A History

“I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your imagination, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart..."She began to really lose it. "...has ever longed... for.”
― Luke Young, quote from Friends With Partial Benefits

“My purpose in the classroom, and the main reason I’ve written this book, is to translate the truly astounding, groundbreaking, sometimes even revolutionary discoveries of my fellow physicists into concepts and language intelligent, curious laypeople can really get hold of—to make a bridge between the world of professional scientists and your world. Too many of us seem to prefer talking only to our peers and make it awfully difficult for most people—even those who really want to understand science—to enter our world.”
― Walter Lewin, quote from For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge of Time: A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics

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