Celeste Ng Quotes

“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.” (chapter 15 p250)

Everything, she noticed, seemed capable of transmogrification. Even the two boulders in the backyard sometimes turned to silver in the early morning sunlight. In the books she read, every stream might be a river god, every tree a dryad in disguise, every old woman a powerful fairy, every pebble an enchanted soul. Anything had the potential to transform, and this, to her, seemed the true meaning of art. (chapter 13 p188)

To a parent, your child wasn't just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all at the same time. You could see it every time you looked at her: layered in her face was the baby she'd been and the child she'd become and the adult she would grow up to be, and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image. It made your head spin. It was a place you could take refuge, if you knew how to get in. And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again. (Chapter 9, p122)

ANGER IS FEAR’S BODYGUARD, a poster in the hospital had read (Chapter 9, p110)

The photos stirred feelings she couldn't quite frame in words, and this, she decided, must mean they were true works of art. (p99)

When she asked Mia how she knew which images to put together, Mia shook her head. "I don't," she said. "This-this is how I figure out what I think...I don't have a plan, I'm afraid," she said..."But then, no one really does, no matter what they say." (Chapter 8, p91)

“Everyone sees race, Lex," said Moody. "The only difference is who pretends not to.” (Chapter 4, p42)

At that moment [he] had a sudden clear understanding of what had already happened that morning: his life had been divided into a before and an after, and he would always be comparing the two. (chapter 2 p21)

Everyone on Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle,the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down. All spring the gossip had been about little Mirabelle McCullough--or, depending which side you are on, May Ling Chow--and now, at last, there was something new and sensational to discuss. (chapter 1 first lines)

To those out on their own paths, setting little fires

In the dark they are careful of each other, as if they know they are fragile, as if they know they can break. (p283)

Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it. (p273)

they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure. (p271)

It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales. (p271)

People decide what you're like before they even get to know you” (p193)