Quotes from What We Saw

“Remember,” Mr. Johnston says, “nothing is exactly as it appears. The closer you look, the more you see.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Why does everybody say ‘feminist’ that way?” “What way?” “The way Dooney kept saying ‘herpes’ after health class last year. Like it’s this terrible, unspeakable thing.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Sometimes I get the feeling [my parents have] asked me to hold this big invisible secret for them, like a backpack full of rocks--all these things they don't want to know about themselves. I'm supposed to wear it as I hike up this trail toward my adulthood. They're already at the summit of Full Grown Mountain. They're waiting for me to get there and cheering me on, telling me I can do it, and sometimes scolding and asking why I'm not hiking any faster or why I'm not having more fun along the way. I know I'm not supposed to talk about this backpack full of their crazy, but sometimes I really wish we could all stop for a second. Maybe they could walk down the trail from the top and meet me. We could unzip that backpack, pull out all of those rocks, and leave the ones we no longer need by the side of the trail. It'd make the walk a lot easier. Maybe then my shoulders wouldn't get so tense when Dad lectures me about money or Mom starts a new diet she saw on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“That day, in the warm sun, surrounded by the solid proof of an ancient realm, I let go of forming theories. I only know that, given enough time, this wound would scar over. The layers of my life will slowly cover and fill the gulf cleft through my heart. But deep in the bedrock of who I am is a record of these things I will carry with me, a new map whose boundaries have forever altered the way I view the world.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“will be boys’ is what people say to excuse guys when they do something awful.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“The closer you look, the more you see.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Some moments should only be recorded in our hearts.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“What about me?” I choke. “Do you owe me something? I was just as wasted as she was. Why do I get driven home and kept safe but not her? Why not just leave me to Dooney and Deacon and the boys in the basement?”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Turns out any ordinary place can be made extraordinary by the presence of the right person.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“I want to tell her that I don’t think a book from the Bronze Age is a good enough reason to relegate women to the role of “helpers” for all time.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Words have meanings.When we call something a theory in science, it means something. Reggie, when you say that you 'can't help yourself' if a girl is wasted, that means something,too.You're saying that our natural state as men is 'rapist'.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Given enough time, everything changes. Maybe this sense of how fragile our connections are is what makes us obsessed with saving them—writing them down, taking pictures, recording them in tweets, documenting them with status updates and videos. It is clear to me now that when the earth does move beneath our feet—when our hearts slam and scrape and break apart—when we barely survive the flood, we take precautions. We”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“There’s no going back. Once you know something for sure, the only path through it is forward. Alfred”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Don't judge a book by its cover. Mom is always saying that, but most of the time, I think that's exactly what people are asking us to do: Please. Judge me by my cover. Judge me by exactly what I've worked so hard to show you.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Fear is the reason I can’t let this go, either. It’s the reason Rachel needs to believe that whatever happened is Stacey’s fault. It’s why she insists that we’re all very different from Stacey. Because the truth is that if it could happen to Stacey, it could happen to any of us. By”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“How can they walk around in the hallways at school like nothing happened? Like they didn’t witness—” My voice dissolves into tears again. “A crime?” Lindsey says without moving. “Yeah.” “They don’t think it was a crime,” she says quietly.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Learning how to walk away uses a different set of muscles, new ones that I haven’t yet developed.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“You’re doing the right thing,” she says. “Doesn’t feel like it.” I wipe my eyes. I am so tired of crying. She nods, reading back over her list and flipping to a new page in her steno pad. “Sometimes, that’s how you know,” she says without looking up. “That’s how you know.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Of course, to them, we're just kids.
One day, they say, we'll understand.
But I wonder if maybe I'm the one who does understand.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“What bothered me most was how Will didn’t get it. He didn’t understand why I was upset that he was telling these girls they don’t measure up. He acts like he has some natural right to tell them they should look a certain way. Why? Because he’s a dude?” “It’s”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Sometimes inspiration requires looking at things from a different point of view.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“We try to hold on to the things we think will keep us safe and maintain that place we can point to an say, This is normal. Adele and her stockpile of provisions, Connie Bonine and her storefront of all that Willie left behind, Mom and her gallery wall, Dad and his antique flip-screen camera, the coral on my nightstand: all of these are records of an era past; the symbols we cling to that we might explain our present and chart our changes; the fossils of a secret history we carry deep within us, etched into the bedrock of our beings.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“But mostly Stacey likes the guys with long hair and trench coats. They’ve got the weed, after all. I”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“The words on my tongue disappear. My first instinct is to run my fingers through his hair, but I stop my hand midair. It floats over his head for a second, before I press it against my lips, and slowly drop it back into the grass. I relax against the tree, attempting to breathe normally.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Nothing is exactly as it appears. The closer you look, the more you see.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Boys will be boys' is what people say to excuse guys when they do something awful.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Not being able to say no isn't the same as saying yes.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Nothing is exactly as it appears.
The closer you look, the more you see.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

“Why do you like birds so much?' I asked.
A look of pity flitted over her face, followed by a smile. 'Because they can fly, silly.”
― Aaron Hartzler, quote from What We Saw

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Popular quotes

“I got to eavesdrop at a window. As Clay said, I did have another option. I could wait in the car and let them fill me in later. So, eavesdropping it was.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Broken

“By morning, she was raw and sore, and knew walking would be an effort. By morning, she could barely remember what it had been like to not know his body, not to have felt him inside her and held him in her arms and absorbed the power of his thrusts as he came.
By morning, she was his.”
― Linda Howard, quote from Cry No More

“Purring is not so different from praying. To a tree, a cat's purr is one of the purest of all prayers, for in it lies a whole mixture of gratitude and longing, the twin ingredients of every prayer.”
― Kathi Appelt, quote from The Underneath

“Aren’t you a little young to be a captain? Not that I’m sure you weren’t wonderful at it,” I added hastily, “but Frank’s got to be your same age, and Mr. Graces and Mr. Liu are both older than you. How on earth did it happen?”
He shut down. It was like a curtain being pulled across a window. This was a subject he definitely did not wish to discuss.
“The title is honorary,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “I can’t stop them calling me that, even though I’ve asked them not to. I was the highest-ranking officer to survive the…accident.”
Accident? I supposed this was another one of those things he didn’t want to tell me because it would make me hate him.
Recognizing that dropping that particular topic-for now at least-would probably be best. I said, “John, I can warn you about the Furies. And I know exactly where the coffin is. All you have to do is take me back to Isla Huesos-just this one time, to help Alex-and I’ll never mention going there again. I’ll even,” I said, reaching up to straighten the collar of his leather jacket, which had gone askew, “forgive you for the waffles-“
John seized me by both shoulders, pulling me towards him so abruptly that Hope gave an alarmed flap of her wings.
“Pierce,” he said. “Do you mean that?”
When I pushed back some of the hair that had tumbled into my face and raised my dark eyes to meet his light ones, I saw that he was staring down at me with an intensity that burned.
“You’ll never mention going back to Isla Huesos again if I take you there right now, this once, to talk to your cousin Alex?” he demanded. “You’ll give…cohabitation another chance?”
His sudden fierceness was making me nervous.
“Of course, John,” I said. “But it’s not like I have a choice.”
“What if you did?” he asked, his grip tightening.
I blinked. “But I can’t. You said-“
He gave me a little shake. “Never mind what I said. What if I was wrong?”
I reached up to lay a hand on his cheek. It felt a little scratchy, because he hadn’t shaved. I didn’t care about stubble. What I cared about was the desperate need I saw in his eyes. The need for me.
“I’d come back,” I said, simply, “to stay with you.”
A second later, the late-and everything around it-was gone.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Underworld

“Ooooohh, I heard you had an STD, but I thought it was just a rumor. Does it really burn?"

- Moose in reference to Jadyn's "burning bush" -”
― Jillian Dodd, quote from That Wedding

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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.

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