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The Vanishing Half QUOTES

The Vanishing Half QUOTES

1 " Why can’t you just be yourself?” Stella asked once.
“Maybe I don’t know who that is,” her daughter shot back. And Stella understood, she did. That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was what had captured her in the charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood came, your choices solidifying, and you realize that everything you are had been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath. So she understood why her daughter was searching for a self, and she even blamed herself for it. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

2 " Desiree knew because Stella had done it in New Orleans. Slipped out of one life into another as easily as stepping into the next room. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

3 " This river, like all rivers, remember its course "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

4 " Being half lost was worse than being fully lost. It was impossible to know which part of you knew the way. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

5 " You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

6 " Nobody had warned her of this as a girl, when they carried on over her beautiful light complexion - how easily her skin would wear the mark of an angry man. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

7 " Barry prided himself on his ability to keep his lives separate. . . He was Bianca on two Saturday nights a month, and otherwise, he pushed her out of sight, even though he thought about her, shopped for her, planned for her eventual return. Barry went to faculty meetings and family reunions and church, Bianca always lingering on the edge of his mind. She had her role to play and Barry had his. You could live a life this way, split. As long as you knew who was in charge. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

8 " Some hoped, watching Desiree hold the hand of the little dark girl, that the two wouldn't even stay that long. They weren't used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them. Each time that girl passed by, no hat or nothing, they were as galled as when Thomas Richard returned from the war, half a leg lighter, and walked around town with one pant leg pinned back so that everyone could see his loss. If nothing could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were trying to hide it. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

9 " Some hoped, watching Desiree hold the hand of the little dark girl, that the two wouldn't even stay that long. They weren't used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them. Each time that girl passed by, no hat or nothing, they were as galled as when Thomas Richard returned from the war, half a leg lighter, and walked around town with one pant leg pinned back to that everyone could see his loss. If nothing could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were trying to hide it. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

10 " The morning one of the twins returned to Mallard, Lou LeBon ran to the diner to break the news, and even now, many years later, everyone remembers the shock of sweaty Lou pushing through the glass doors, chest heaving, neckline darkened with his own effort. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

11 " Improbable events happened all the time, she tried to explain to her students, because improbability is an illusion based on our preconceptions. Often it has nothing to do with statistical truth. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

12 " The twins had always seemed both blessed and cursed; they'd inherited, from their mother, the legacy of an entire town, and from their father, a legacy hollowed by loss. Four Vignes boys, all dead by thirty. The eldest collapsed in a chain gang from heatstroke; the second gassed in a Belgian trench; the third stabbed in a bar fight; and the youngest, Leon Vignes, lynched twice, the first time at home while his twin girls watched through a crack in the closet door, hands clamped over each other's mouths until their palms were misted with spit. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

13 " Her death hit in waves. Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

14 " People thought that being one of a kind made you special. No, it just made you lonely. What was special was belonging with someone else. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

15 " She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

16 " This big ol' world and we only get to go through it once. The saddest thing there is, you ask me. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

17 " There were many ways to be alienated from someone, few to actually belong. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

18 " A town always looked different once you'd returned, like a house where all the furniture had shifted three inches. You wouldn't mistake it for a stranger's house but you'd keeping banging your shins on the table corners. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

19 " The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half

20 " That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was what had captured her in the charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood came, your choices solidifying, and you realize that everything you are had been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath. "

― Brit Bennett , The Vanishing Half