Quote

There was our father, the heart we knew held all of us. Held us heavily and desperately, the doors of his heart opening and closing with the rapidity of stops on an instrument, the quiet felt closures, the ghostly fingering, practice and practice and then, incredibly, sound and melody and warmth.

Alice Sebold

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alice Sebold
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: September 6
Novelist
Writer
Madison
Wisconsin
Practice
Instrument
Ghostly
Sound
Incredibly
Closure
Father
Held
Heavily
Felt
Opening
Desperately
Heart
Instruments
Closing
Quiet
Stops
Closures
Doors
Warmth
Fingering
Knew
Melody
Rapidity

More quotes by Alice Sebold

Image
But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone. ~pg 254
Alice Sebold
Image
As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.
Alice Sebold
Image
She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.
Alice Sebold
Image
I'm just a friendly bystander who they occasionally ask questions of. That's my level of involvement.
Alice Sebold
Image
And my sister, my Lindsey, left me in her memories, where I was meant to be.
Alice Sebold
Image
Do you miss Susie? Because it was dark, because Ruth was facing away from her,because Ruth was almost a stranger, Lindsey said what she felt. More than anyone will ever know.
Alice Sebold
Image
When I was raped I lost my virginity and almost lost my life. I also discarded certain assumptions I had held about how the world worked and about how safe I was.
Alice Sebold
Image
In my 20s, I railed against anything 'spiritual', I thought it was all crap.
Alice Sebold
Image
One thing about failing repeatedly: If you're still doing it after you've failed that much, you really mean it.
Alice Sebold
Image
Out loud I said I had two children. Silently I said three. I always felt like apologizing to her for that.
Alice Sebold
Image
After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes. Often it is awe or admiration, sometimes it is repulsion, once or twice it has been fury hurled directly at me for reasons I remain unsure of.
Alice Sebold
Image
Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.
Alice Sebold
Image
He would find his Susie,inside his young son. Give that love to the living.
Alice Sebold
Image
Well, it's my voice, so it's more accessible that way, and there are also all sorts of things like plot and timelines that are already known entities, so for me, it's very different from writing fiction.
Alice Sebold
Image
I was like I was in science class: I was curious.
Alice Sebold
Image
At the tips of the feathers there is air and at their base: blood. I hold up bones I wish like broken glass they could court light....still I try to place these pieces back together, to set them firm, to make murdered girls live again.
Alice Sebold
Image
I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand
Alice Sebold
Image
Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.
Alice Sebold
Image
Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go
Alice Sebold
Image
I watched my beautiful sister running . . . and I knew she was not running away from me or toward me. Like someone who has survived a gut-shot, the wound had been closing, closing - braiding into a scar for eight long years.
Alice Sebold