“I had wondered if all mothers shared a fear of how vibrant and alive their children were.” — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child. — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
We all work hard to understand the dynamic relationship we have with a parent. — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“I knew my mother's limitations because they formed the marrow of my bones.” — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“She was in the downstairs bathroom sneaking bites from the macaroons my father's firm always sent us for Christmas. She ate them… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
A father's suspicion...' she began. Is as powerful as a mother's intuition.' ~pg 87, Ruana Singh and Jack Salmon — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
I watched my brother and my father. The truth was very different from what we learned in school. The truth was the… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“She had a stare that stretched to infinity. She was, in that moment, not my mother but something separate from me.” — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“We stood-- the dead child and the living --on either side of my father, both wanting the same thing. To have him… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
You look invincible,' my mother said one night. I loved these times, when we seemed to feel the same thing. I turned… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
A lot of people ask questions that they don't want to answer themselves, and if we're honest about the intimacy that we… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“Judging Natalie as my mother had judged me was, I felt like telling her son, just my ass-backward way of showing love.… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“...between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. "That doesn't mean the… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
She sat in her room on the couch my parents had given up on and worked on hardening herself. Take deep breaths… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
I tried to take solace in Holiday, our dog. I missed him in a way I hadn't yet let myself miss my… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“My mother gave Lindsey a meaningful look. 'We are not discussing this further. You can go up to your room and wait… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
His love for my mother wasn't about looking back and loving something that would never change. It was about loving my mother… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
Last night it had been my father who had finally said it: "She’s never coming home." A clear and easy piece of… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
It was Buckley, as my father and sister joined the group and listened to Grandma Lynn’s countless toasts, who saw me. He… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“On the flight to Phillidelphia, she sat alone in the middle of a row of three seats. She could not help but… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“My father was too distracted to see anything in this. Mimicking my mother, he taped it to the fridge in the same… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“Outside the hospital, a young girl who was selling small bouquets of daffodils, their green stems tied with lavender ribbons. I watched… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“On my way home from the junior high, I would sometimes stop at the edge of our property and watch my mother… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“Lindsey took my father's hand and watched his face for movement. My sister was growing up before my eyes. I listened as… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“That night my mother had what she considered a wonderful dream. She dreamed of the country of India, where she had never… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“She used the bathroom, running the tap noisily and disturbing the towels. She knew immediately that her mother had bought these towels… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“If I walked too far and wondered loud enough the fields would change. I could look down and see horse corn and… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him. Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“She climbed down the cliffs after tying her sweater loosely around her waist. Down below she could see nothing but jagged rocks… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“He sat down among the evidence at a barren communal desk in the basement of the station. He looked through the stack… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“By December 1975, a year had passed since Mr. Harvey had packed his bags, but there was still no sign of him.… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“I watched him as he lined up the ships in bottles on his deck, bringing them over from the shelves where they… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“My little brother's greatest fear was that the one person who meant so much to him would go away. He loved Lindsey… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“Since then he had taken these photos out too many times to count, but each time he looked into the face of… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
There was our father, the heart we knew held all of us. Held us heavily and desperately, the doors of his heart… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
“For three nights he hadn't known how to touch my mother or what to say. Before, they had never found themselves broken… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised… — Alice Sebold Copy Share Image
Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
These things, she felt, were not to be passed around like disingenuous party favors. She kept an honor code with her journals and her… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
“There are secret rooms inside us,” I had said to my therapist. “A relatively benign construct,” he said, and so I did not bother… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
“And a soul would run by a living being, touch them softly on the shoulder or cheek, and continue on its way to heaven.… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
“My little brother's greatest fear was that the one person who meant so much to him would go away. He loved Lindsey and Grandma… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
“She listened for the pain in my words, not to the narrative itself. She was intuiting what it meant to me, what was most… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
The relationship with the words someone uses is more intimate and integrated than just a quick read and a blurb can ever be. This… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
Ruth hadn't talked to my sister since before my death, and then it was only to excuse herself in the hallway at school. But… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
Since then I've always thought that under rape in the dictionary it should tell the truth. It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means… — Alice Sebold Copy Share
I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand — Alice Sebold Copy Share
