“She who only looks inward will find only chaos, and she who looks outward with the eyes of critical judgment will find only flaws. But she who looks with the eyes of compassion and understanding will see complex souls, suffering and soaring, navigating life as best they can.”
pickMichelle Williams did a phenomenal job narrating the book, it really felt like Britney was retelling her story. I couldn‘t stop listening and was so upset when it ended! I‘m a huge fan of reading physical books, but in this case you have to go with the audiobook. It‘s an experience that shouldn‘t be missed.
“She knows that it‘s not necessarily the ones who seem different that you need to be afraid of—it‘s the ones who can carry off normal without anyone suspecting a thing.”
“The average human spends 33 years of their life asleep… don‘t you ever wonder what you might have done when you‘re asleep?”
“That‘s what it takes to catch your prey. Patience. We can all learn a lot from the soft-shelled turtle.”
“Even a prison becomes comforting if it‘s the only thing you know.”
“Like those before him, he holds on to the hope of a miracle. He doesn't realise that, to them, he is not human. He is an everyday, ten-a-penny object…”
“It was easier to believe she was lying than that lightning loves a scarred tree.”
“There‘s a difference between taking care of someone because you love them and taking care of someone because you want them to love you.”
“In that moment, reading those passages, I understood completely how some of the Lackses could believe, without doubt, that Henrietta had been chosen by the Lord to become an immortal being. If you believe the Bible is the literal truth, the immortality of Henrietta's cells makes perfect sense.”
“Never take anything you haven‘t earned, my father used to say. You always end up paying for it one way or another.”
“Like a lion hunting her prey, she waited for the lucky Stanford winner to reveal her good fortune.”
“Because while you can reinvent yourself, you can‘t outrun yourself. As a woman once reminded her a long time ago, the common denominator in all the terrible things that have happened to you is you.”
“Sometimes you can‘t simultaneously be smart, brave, and careful. Sometimes you need to choose one.”
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” -Voltaire
“At night, from the inside,… the only thing you can see is your own reflection.”
“… language doesn‘t work to manipulate people into believing things they don‘t want to believe; instead, it gives them license to believe ideas they‘re already open to.”
“The lowest point of your life can lead to the highest.”
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
“After all, everyone‘s entitled to be the hero of their own story. So I must be permitted to be the hero of mine. Even though I‘m not. I‘m the villain.”
“You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same.”
“Ain't no good in using anger just to lash. You pray for it to blow up a storm that's going to flush out the truth.”
“No matter what happened to you, no matter what horrors you endured when you were taken away, you will always be my pretty little girl.”
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.” -Sigmund Freud
“Demi makes threw, you know. Three, and they label you a serial killer.”
“Into the dark, into the wild, afraid of the sky above but terrified of the boy behind.”
“You can‘t save everyone. Sometimes you just have to save yourself.”
