Laura Wiess Quotes & Sayings

That was the attorney. He said the doctors are very pleased with your father's progress and that his behavior has been exemplary-'
'Well, that's stupid.' My reaction was rude and raw. 'Of course he's been a model prisoner, Mom. There aren't any kids to molest in prison. — Laura Wiess

If I allow my gaze to travel higher-which I won't-I'll see the solid gold basketball charm on a chain that my mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday nestled in his coarse, whorled chest hair.
My front teeth throb as the memory of the charm bangs against them. — Laura Wiess

See, guys freak out. They hit critical mass and blast nuclear, white-hot anger out over the world like walking flamethrowers. But girls freak in. They absorb the pain and bitterness and keep right on sponging it up until they drown. — Laura Wiess

All you really have...is now. — Laura Wiess

And maybe love is terrifying. I'm terrified now, but not in the way she would think.
I'm terrified because I hate who she is and what she's done, I do, and yet there is still something strong and powerful between us, some kind of deep, primal bond that won't end, won't snap or break or change, it just remains there inside me, as sold and factual as my blood and bones - she is my mother, I am her daughter - and I don't know what to call it because it doesn't feel like love, not the good kind I felt for Ellie, with all my heart, but instead an instinctual pull that's been there from the beginning, drawing me back to her again and again, the woman who has hurt me like no one else ever could, and now she's dying and the bond is still here, inside me, and I won't call it love or hate because emotions has nothing to do with the fact that she is my mother and I am her daughter, and we will be connected in that way forever. — Laura Wiess

There are only the three of us and our dark, burgeoning desires
I am so afraid of what comes next — Laura Wiess

He shook his head and gave this laugh, a good laugh, and just looked at me. "You always this happy?"
"No," I said, laughing. "It's you. Every time I see you, I just ... I don't know. You make me smile. — Laura Wiess

Being user friendly doesn't mean you're going to be loved. — Laura Wiess

She smiles and slips her arm through his. Her tread is light and bouncy and I can almost see the ghost of her cheerleader's ponytail bobbing at the back of her head. — Laura Wiess

I tore the crusts off my grilled cheese sandwich and set them aside to throw out for the birds. Their motives were pure
hunger, thirst, shelter
and they didn't mind leftovers. — Laura Wiess

No roll in the hay is worth losing what I've got. — Laura Wiess

We mutinied quietly, using every lesson we'd been taught by every person who'd ever used us for their own benefit. — Laura Wiess

Oh, there's a wholesome outing.' I say. 'Let's all skip down to the cop shop to register my daddy as a pervert. What fun. — Laura Wiess

It's just that instead of erupting and annihilating our tormentors, we destroy ourselves instead. — Laura Wiess

How can you make someone love you when they won't? How long are you supposed to keep trying? — Laura Wiess

I don't know how you say good-bye to whom and what you love. I don't know a painless way to do it, don't know the words to capture a heart so full and a longing so intense. — Laura Wiess

Hate the behavior, not the individual. — Laura Wiess

In my family, you can rot to hell on the inside as long as you're flawless on the outside, which is really sick, but also hard to unlearn. — Laura Wiess

So I wait for him because I always have, because out of all the moments that went wrong, I think there were just as many that went right, just as much love and heat and want as hurt, disappointment, and cruelty. I want to believe there's a balance here, that out of this tragedy will come some good, and there will be a happy ending. — Laura Wiess

Where is home?
Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness.
Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace. — Laura Wiess

Won't say anything, won't burst into tears and buckle under the weight of this last, awful straw. — Laura Wiess

But when I looked for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness came. My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep. (Job) — Laura Wiess

Sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most. — Laura Wiess

How about giving your old man a break here, huh, Chirp?"
"Chirp is dead," I hear myself say and watch the flat words destroy his pleasure. "You killed her, and now you have to deal with me because I'm what's left. — Laura Wiess

You can't come wandering around in at all hours of the night looking like you've been-"

"Raped?" "Not to worry, Estertown's been safe for three years now, Dad. — Laura Wiess

What's the point of obsessing over cholesterol or bike helmets or even cigarettes when the biggest threats to our children are being released back into society every day? Yes, maybe 'some' of them have reformed, but what about the ones who haven't? Doesn't anyone realize that one 'touch', one 'time' will destroy a child's life ten times faster than a pack-a-day habit? — Laura Wiess

Now, I learned a long time ago how to be quiet on the outside while I'm freaking on the inside. How to turn away like I don't see all the things that need to be seen, just to keep peace. How to lie low and act like I want nothing, expect nothing, and hope for nothing so I don't become more trouble than I'm worth. I'm five months short of eighteen and I know how to be cursed and ignored and left behind, how to swallow a thousand tears and ignore a thousand delibarate cruelties, but it's two in the morning on New Year's Eve and I'm mad and scared and bone tired and really, really sick of acting like I'm grateful to be staying on a hairy, sagging, dog-stained couch in a junky, mildewed trailer with a fat, dangerous, volatile drunk who sweats stale beer and wallows in his own wastewater, and who doesn't think there's one thing wrong with taking his crap life out on his dog, who comes bellying back for forgiveness every single time, no matter how rotten the treatment- — Laura Wiess

All emotion receded, pulled out like low tide, leaving my brain an empty ocean bottom — Laura Wiess

A victim soul is a pious individual chosen to absorb the pain and suffering of others. — Laura Wiess

If not for you or your daughter, then for Nicky? Couldn't you do it for Nicky?' I stop breathing. My mother pales. 'You know what, Mom? You're right. Let me do for Nicky exactly what he did for me.' She wheels and with one savage sweep of her arm, she clears the table and sends everything crashing to the floor. — Laura Wiess

The law says they aren't allowed to share the info with anyone else, but of course they did - who wouldn't? - so now we're marked for life. His picture is even posted on the New Jersey Sex Offender Internet Registry. — Laura Wiess

And of how we never really know someone, no matter how much we want to believe that we do. — Laura Wiess

The ache starts in my chest and spreads through my veins. The abuse I can handle; it's the happiness that cripples. — Laura Wiess

I learned to move silently in the background, a dirty, neglected little kid with no voice, no wants, and who made no trouble so as not to call the wrath of the eight or so tweaking adults who lived there down on me. I drifted, faded, and became a listless, ghostlike scavenger who took what she could get. I lived mostly in my head and for a while actually convinced myself that I was a survivor of one of those catastrophic earthquakes or tornadoes I used to see on the Weather Channel,a dazed, bewildered, and emotionless girl picking her way through an endless landscape of foul and stinking rubble to try and come out on the other side. — Laura Wiess

My biggest mistake is in believing there are limits to how bad it can get. — Laura Wiess

Hell no. You're what saved you, kid. Not divine intervention. — Laura Wiess

Maybe it's true that shared trauma brings people closer together-a common hardship, a battle to survive-because when times are quiet people relax and go their own separate ways. They're lulled into believing they've got everything under control and don't need what they did before. — Laura Wiess

That's what innocence is, you know. A blissful oblivion of what's coming, of what you'll lose and what you'll gain, and what kind of person you'll grow up to be. — Laura Wiess

That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct. — Laura Wiess

Rape is not a mistake! He did it on purpose, over and over again because he wanted to, because he off on it- — Laura Wiess

After school I all but ran to Gran's and it was funny how even with her so sick, being with her could still make me feel safe. — Laura Wiess

When someone threatens suicide, when they tell somebody they're going to do it beforehand they're reaching out, hoping someone will stop them. The problem is that people who aren't depressed don't always understand that and have a hard time believing it. To them, the idea of killing yourself to end pain is inconceivable. They think it's nothing but drama or a bid for attention and if they ignore it or reason with them, they'll come to their senses and life will go back to normal. [ ... ] Most times it doesn't happen that way. The ones who don't tell anyone beforehand ... They've already made their decision and planned it all out to make sure they succeed. We find them after the fact, when it's too late. — Laura Wiess

And I don't want to hurt anymore. I want to be someone who makes it through — Laura Wiess

Oh, baby girl," he says with a sigh. "I am so, so sorry. — Laura Wiess

I know the grim probability of my own future.
The odds are high that the best of me has already been ripped away and that id I don't keep hold of myself I will lose what's left. — Laura Wiess

this is no place for miracles — Laura Wiess

Tonight is when the obscene becomes the acceptable. — Laura Wiess

The distant threat of eternal damnation pales in comparison to the immediate gratification of corrupting young skin. — Laura Wiess

Ignorance of the outcome doesn't exempt you from the consequences. — Laura Wiess

My mother plants her hands on her hips, peevish. "Is that the best welcome you can come up with? Why don't you come over here and give your father a hug?" Hug him? Touch him? How can she even suggest it? — Laura Wiess

What are you doing?" I say hoarsely as he trails a finger from the beauty mark on my rib cage to the one on my hip, leaving a path of goose bumps in his wake.
"Connecting the dots," he murmurs with a wicked look. "Uh-oh, you made me lose my place. Now I have to start all over again ... — Laura Wiess

There are worse things in life to be than fat, and one of them is ignorant. Another is prejudiced. Another is deliberately cruel. — Laura Wiess

Knowing deep inside some ghosts are too cruel to question — Laura Wiess

Physical imperfections have always offended him, but apparently my bad hygiene wasn't repellent enough. Perhaps Ms. Mues's full-blown adulthood will be. — Laura Wiess

We have babies because we want them to love us, to make us important, but the only make us tired and fat and stinking of spit up because they're babies, not saviors. Their fathers leave us, sick of crap and sour milk, sweatpants and tears.
But the babies still need all of us, only there isn't anything left to give because we based our worth on the lowlifes who knocked us up and around.
So our babies end up screwed up and screwed with because not we're single again, too, so we're bringing home guys who secretly like pink satin baby skin more than our silvery stretch marks. We don't see what we should see because having anyone is till supposedly better than being alone. — Laura Wiess

Meredith's a big girl. She knows how babies are made, don't you, Mer?"
I nod, numb and weary. "'Course I do. Same guy that taught you taught me. — Laura Wiess

So I leave proof of my existence behind me like a snail trail with the small hope that years of talking at me will someday soften her enough to talk with me, that she'll finally pull the knife from my chest and say yes, we are better off without him. That what happened wasn't my fault and from now on she will thrust herself between me and danger, and shout NO. — Laura Wiess

And while we're talking about being used and abused, you should know that there are some things you tell and some things you handle by yourself, the best you can. — Laura Wiess

If she'd said she loved me and still did all those cruel and careless things, would my child mind have decided to accept that as the definition of love?
Probably.
Would I have ended up believing that love was manipulative and hurtful and full of pain, gotten use to being shoved aside, sworn at and disregarded, picked up and hugged, and then slapped around for getting in the way, starved and smiled at, neglected and cursed, told I was no good and would never amount to anything, then hefted high and proudly shown off down at the Walmart, introduced as a little pisser and a big mistake in the same breath?
Yes, I would have, because if she said she loved me and then acted that way I would have thought that was how you loved someone, and how someone should love you back. — Laura Wiess

So sometimes what takes you down can be used to raise you up again. — Laura Wiess

Be good. Be a nice girl. Don't ruin our happy family. — Laura Wiess

We wait to be rescued, but for whatever reason, no one comes. We figure that if no one protects us then we must not be worth protecting so we become prey and are easily picked off. Our wounded, kicked-puppy gazes attract sly predators and we sell ourselves for clearance sale prices, mistaking screwing for caring. — Laura Wiess

Real life isn't like the movies. The victim doesn't usually win. She just endures. — Laura Wiess

Tomorrow belongs to betrayal. Today is mine and I don't want to waste it being afraid. — Laura Wiess

Why should I just sit around hoping it happens when maybe I can do something to make it happen? — Laura Wiess

I am shrunken and shriveled inside, a rotten chestnut hidden beneath a deceptively smooth shell — Laura Wiess

We're not afraid of the dark. Our nightmares were born on sultry, summer afternoons. — Laura Wiess

I started wondering about life stories, how each one of us has one that isn't apparent at first glance, what we tell the world about ourselves and what we deliberately tuck away and never reveal. — Laura Wiess

My father's release date was given to all the local cops, school administrators, and youth group leaders. — Laura Wiess

Yeah, I know I've changed. Nothing gets to me anymore.
Well, okay, except for stuff in the past. Back then I was all innocent and trusting and didn't know anything. Now I know plenty and you can't fucking touch me. — Laura Wiess

It's okay. Don't push her, Sharon. — Laura Wiess

Never say God - and the Beatles - don't have great timing. — Laura Wiess

No step is a safe one, so it's safer to take none at all. — Laura Wiess

Time is not your friend. It doesn't care if you live fast or die slow, if you are or if you aren't. It was here before you arrived and it will go on after you leave. Time doesn't care who wins or who loses, if your life span is full or empty, honorable or shameful. Time is indifferent. It simply doesn't give a shit. — Laura Wiess

They brought along a young man named Andy who wants very much to see you. She steps aside to let him through.
I tuck my hair back behind my ears.
Meet his shining gaze and break into a smile.
He is so tall. — Laura Wiess

somebody chokes, it's always on a hunk of steak. — Laura Wiess