Quotes from What My Mother Doesn't Know

Sonya Sones ·  261 pages

Rating: (13.6K votes)


“Culture Clash

Dylan says
when I meet his mother today
I shouldn't mention
that I'm Jewish.

I say
okay, but can I
tell her about
the HIV postive thing?

He gives me a look.
I give him one back”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“We've turned off all the lights
in the living room
to make hand shadows.

We've got this
big flashlight
aimed at the wall.

I make the silhouette of my hand
into a duck.
Robin makes his into a rabbit.

Now my duck kisses his rabbit
And-POOF!- it turns into
a turkey.

And for some reason
this strikes us
as hysterically funny.

But you probably had to be there.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“I wish he hadn't gone and cut his hair.
He looks about eight years old.
His ears have tripled in size.
Everyone's started calling him Dumbo.
Which wouldn't be so bad,
except they've started calling me
Mrs. Dumbo.

You can't even tell
he's got curly hair anymore.
There's nothing left
to run my fingers through.
Just this weird
blond AstroTurf
sprouting out of his skull.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“I love that sign," I say.
"I love you," Robin says.
I feel my cheeks
turn the color of the sky.
"I love you, too," I say.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“what my mother doesnt know wont hurt her”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know



“Grace says, "Are you thirsty?
I could go get the hose..."
I say, "Thanks. But I'd rather have
a swig of some Miracle-Gro.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“Every now and then,
during the commercials
Dad will say something like,
'How was school today, Sophie Dophie?'

Once I said, 'We played strip poker
during third period and I lost.'
Dad just said, 'That's nice,'
without even looking up from his meatloaf.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“If Dylan and I had met
by chatting on the Net
in a room of cyberspace
instead of face to face
and I hadn't seen his lips
or the way he moves his hips
when he does that sexy dance
and I hadn't had a chance
to look into his eyes
and be dazzled by their size
and all that I had seen
were his letters on my screen,
then I might as well confess:
I think I would have liked him

less.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


“I prefer to thin of it as rebooting my ovarian operating system.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know


About the author

Sonya Sones
Born place: in Boston, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“her skin nearly transparent, as if her body was halfway to heaven already, with only her fierce, eaglelike gaze left behind.”
― Jennifer Bernard, quote from The Fireman Who Loved Me


“But you, that are polluted with your lusts, Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents, Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices, Because you want the grace that others have, You judge it straight a thing impossible To compass wonders but by help of devils.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Henry VI, Part 1


“Tyler had bandaged her burns, and she had soothed his bruises. They hadn’t made love, though she knew they’d both wanted to. But sometimes those aches and pains were a little too much to get in the mood.”
― Carrie Ann Ryan, quote from Finding Abigail


“I remember my brother as such a gentle and loving child, the best big brother a girl could hope for, but I remember when I started to sense our family's world tilting on its axis, the kaleidoscope turning, when things started to go wrong. From then on, it was like we were still ourselves, but our lives played out as though reflected back to us from a funhouse mirror.”
― quote from Breathless


“Find a reason to turn your nose up at a culture, to denigrate a people because they are different, and it's not such a giant leap from ethnic subjugation to ethnic slaughter”
― Ronald H. Balson, quote from Once We Were Brothers


Interesting books

Ugly Love
(127K)
Ugly Love
by Colleen Hoover
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
(369.2K)
The Ocean at the End...
by Neil Gaiman
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
(19K)
A River Runs Through...
by Norman Maclean
A Passage to India
(56.8K)
A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
(176.6K)
To All the Boys I've...
by Jenny Han
Lover Enshrined
(96.2K)
Lover Enshrined
by J.R. Ward

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.