Quotes from When the Bough Breaks

Jonathan Kellerman ·  432 pages

Rating: (53K votes)


“There were nights when I left the sessions physically and emotionally drained after hearing the anguish pour out like blood from a gaping wound. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different – psychotherapy is one of the most taxing endeavors known to mankind; I’ve done all sorts of work, from picking carrots in the scorching sun to sitting on national committees in paneled board rooms, and there’s nothing that compares to confronting human misery hour after hour and bearing the responsibility for easing that misery using only one’s mind and mouth. At its best it’s tremendously uplifting as you watch the patient open up, breathe, let go of the pain. At its worst is like surfing in a cesspool struggling for balance while being slapped with wave after putrid wave.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks


“Assholes are like weeds, a bitch to get rid of and when you do another one grows back in its place.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks


“Pessimism is not good for the soul."
"I sold my soul years ago."
"To whom?"
"The bitch goddess Success. She cut town before paying off.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks


“It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks


“made out a shape at the other end of the greenhouse,”
― Jonathan Kellerman, quote from When the Bough Breaks



About the author

Jonathan Kellerman
Born place: in New York, The United States
Born date August 9, 1949
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Popular quotes

“I remember a period in late adolescence when my mind would make itself drunk with images of adventurousness. This is how it will be when I grow up. I shall go there, do this, discover that, love her, and then her and her and her. I shall live as people in novels live and have lived. Which ones I was not sure, only that passion and danger, ecstasy and despair (but then more ecstasy) would be in attendance. However...who said that thing about "the littleness of life that art exaggerates"? There was a moment in my late twenties when I admitted that my adventurousness had long since petered out. I would never do those things adolescence had dreamt about. Instead, I mowed my lawn, I took holidays, I had my life.

But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but we were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.”
― Julian Barnes, quote from The Sense of an Ending


“Hacía falta una fortaleza diferente para persuadir en vez de obligar. Talut se ganaba el respeto respetando a los demás.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Mammoth Hunters


“It is, as you know, very, very rude and usually unnecessary to use profanity.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Reptile Room


“i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like
when i am sad
i don’t cry i pour
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i don’t smile i glow
when i am angry
i don’t yell i burn
the good thing about
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i give them wings
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that isn't
such a good thing
cause they always
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when my heart is broken
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― Rupi Kaur, quote from Milk and Honey


“Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?’ enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
‘One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,’ says Sugar. ‘It saves time and paper.’ Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, ‘If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?’
Sophie answers without hesitation.
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