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41 " I was both the monster and the sad girl. I couldn't separate the two. "
― Jennifer Brown , Hate List
42 " We drove on in silence, Dad shaking his head in disgust every few minutes. I stared at him, wondering how it was we got to this place. How the same man who held his infant daughter and kissed her tiny face could one day be so determined to shut her out of his life, out of his heart. How, even when she reached out to him in distress - Please, Dad, come get me, come save me - all he could do was accuse her. How that same daughter could look at him and feel nothing but contempt and blame and resentment, because that's all that radiated off of him for so many years and it had become contagious. "
43 " I don’t know if it’s possible to take hate away from people. Not even people like us, who’ve seen firsthand what hate can do. We’re all hurting. We’re all going to be hurting for a long time. And we, probably more than anyone else out there, will be searching for a new reality every day. A better one. "
44 " It was one of the constants of life. You are born, you die, you stand up when the bus doors open. "
45 " Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?” I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn’t. “I’ve been doing really good lately and you don’t even care. "
46 " Mr.Kline was standing his ground, his arms outstretched in front of a small group of kids. He was red faced an appeared sweaty or maybe just covered with tears. I ran to catch up with them. "
47 " 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 , Torn Away
48 " I didn't answer. Just shook my head and let the tears roll. "I just want it to go away. I just want all the drama to stop. Nobody would believe me anyway," I whispered. "Nobody would care. "
49 " What could he say about a future to those parents who couldn't let go of the past, who could do nothing but watch their hopes for their children's futures fade away, their children gone for more than a year now and never coming back? What could he say to the rest of us, so marred by what happened within those hallowed halls of education we knew and once loved? There would be no sweet memories -- those would be forever eclipsed. "
50 " In a way, Nick had been right: We all got to be winners sometimes. But what he didn't understand was that we all had to be losers, too. Because you can't have one without the other. "
51 " Will you ever forgive me? " I shot back, leveling my gaze directly into his eyes.He stared into them for a few moments and then got up silently and headed for the door. He didn't turn around when he reached it. Just grabbed the doorknob and held it."No," he said, without facing me. "Maybe it makes me a bad parent, but I don't know if I can. No matter what the police found, you were involved in that shooting, Valerie. You wrote those names on that list. You wrote my name on that list. You had a good life here. You may not have pulled the trigger, but you helped cause the tragedy."Hate List "
― Jennifer Brown
52 " It'd felt good to be part of an "us," with the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same miseries. "
53 " I understand that it would be easier for you to think of him as a hero. But, Valerie, he did kill a lot of kids. Probably not a lot of people are going to think of him as a hero. "
54 " Sometimes you've gotta humor the old people. "
55 " That you love him so much the idea of losing him hurts just as immediately and fully as if you'd already lost him? "
― Jennifer Brown , Thousand Words
56 " I didn't say anything at all, because somehow saying nothing seemed more humane than giving him all these reassurances. "
57 " He sat on the edge of my bed. He didn't say anything at first, just stared at my toenails. I curled them under instinctively and immediately was worried that I'd messed up my painting job. I let them uncurl. Only one was marred. I used my thumb to rub most of the polish off of it and then I stared at my foot, which suddenly looked so vulnerable and imperfect with the one toe ringed in hot pink polish but bare on the inside of the nail. Like I'd started but had forgotten to finish being beautiful. "
58 " Just concentrate on being in the moment”, he said. “Don’t read into things. See what’s really there ok? "
59 " 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. "
60 " ...we didn't know...the reality of who those people were. "