She's Come Undone Quotes

“Love is like breathing, you take it in and let it out.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“I know it's a crock of shit. I ain't offering you happily-ever-after. I'm offering you... happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts and shit." -Thayer”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“It was a matter of perspective, I began to see.
The whole world was crazy; I'd flattered myself by assuming I was a semifinalist."
-- Dolores Price”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“This was what could happen to you: you could end up this far from where you thought you were going.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“He's splitting me open, I thought. He'll break me and then I'll die.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“He was right. And he was an insensitive shit.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Fuck you, I said."
Uh-oh. There's that angry word.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Who gets the change?" the clerk asked. "You or...your fella?"
Oh, he's not my boyfriend," I said. "He's my mother.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Guess what?' I said. 'I have a psychic.'
His head tilted questioningly, birdlike.
A sidekick?”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“She's got a certain feisty charm for a racist. Not to mention all those great dead-animal stories.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy: he had been a shitty father and a shitty husband - a man who's made two bad choices based on lust and coveting and then been too weak either to live with them or undo them. But he had not been a rapist.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“A purple African violet so lush and fleshy it looked edible... his fingers as cool and smooth as beach stones.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“I wonder what my baby is thinking at this moment," he called, rubbing his stomach with his hands. What I was thinking about was whether or not his being my mother was going to wreck my nightly friction ritual.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Rosalie sat sideways in her chair, shaking from the laughter she was swallowing. I imagined myself drawing a gun from desk, taking aim, and killing her without so much as a quiver.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Your mother mentioned she had a little girl. These are for you, sweetheart. Just a little something, heh heh."
He handed me a wrinkled paper bag with a grease spot on it. I hate it when you could hear a person's saliva right in their laugh.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“People had always amazed him, he began. But they amazed him more since the sickness. For as long as the two of them had been together, he said, Gary’s mother had accepted him as her son’s lover, had given them her blessing. Then, at the funeral, she’d barely acknowledged him. Later, when she drove to the house to retrieve some personal things, she’d hunted through her son’s drawers with plastic bags twist-tied around her wrists.
“…And yet,” he whispered, “The janitor at school--remember him? Mr. Feeney? --he’d openly disapproved of me for nineteen years. One of the nastiest people I knew. Then when the news about me got out, after I resigned, he started showing up at the front door every Sunday with a coffee milkshake. In his church clothes, with his wife waiting out in the car. People have sent me hate mail, condoms, Xeroxed prayers…”
What made him most anxious, he told me, was not the big questions--the mercilessness of fate, the possibility of heaven. He was too exhausted, he said, to wrestle with those. But he’d become impatient with the way people wasted their lives, squandered their chances like paychecks.
I sat on the bed, massaging his temples, pretending that just the right rubbing might draw out the disease. In the mirror I watched us both--Mr. Pucci, frail and wasted, a talking dead man. And myself with the surgical mask over my mouth, to protect him from me.
“The irony,” he said, “… is that now that I’m this blind man, it’s clearer to me than it’s ever been before. What’s the line? ‘Was blind but now I see…’” He stopped and put his lips to the plastic straw. Juice went halfway up the shaft, then back down again. He motioned the drink away. “You accused me of being a saint a while back, pal, but you were wrong. Gary and I were no different. We fought…said terrible things to each other. Spent one whole weekend not speaking to each other because of a messed up phone message… That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I’m fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness--That’s what makes me sad. Everyone’s so scared to be happy.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
His eyes opened wider. For a second he seemed to see me. “No you don’t,” he said. “You mustn’t. He keeps wanting to give you his love, a gift out and out, and you dismiss it. Shrug it off because you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. It’s more like…” I watched myself in the mirror above the sink. The mask was suddenly a gag. I listened.
“I’ll give you what I learned from all this,” he said. “Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Audry Hepburn on the cover of The Nun's Story was staring up at me from my unmade bed. Her hair was hidden by her snow-white wimple; her big eyes looked frightened.
"What are you looking at?" I said. "Fuck you." It was the first time I'd ever said the word. I felt a brief shiver of power.

Then I sat back on the bed and sobbed. Dolores Price: Lady of Sorrow.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“What made him most anxious, he told me, was not the big questions -the mercilessness of fate, the possibility of heaven. He was too exhausted, he said, to wrestle with those. But he'd become impatient with the way people wasted their lives, squandered their chances like paychecks.
I sat on the bed, massaging his temples, pretending that just the right rubbing might draw out the disease. In the mirror I watched us both -Mr. Pucci, frail and wasted, a talking dead man. And myself with a surgical mask over my mouth, to protect him from me.
"The irony," he said, "... is that now that I'm this blind man, it's clearer to me now then it's ever been before. What's the line? 'Was blind but now I see...' " He stopped and put his lips to the plastic straw. Juice went halfway up the shaft, then back down again. He motioned the drink away.
"You accused me of being a saint a while back, pal, but you were wrong. Gary and I were no different. We fought ...said terrible things to each other. Spent one whole weekend not speaking to each other because of a messed-up phone message...
That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness -that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy."
"I know what you mean," I said.
His eyes opened wider. For a second he seemed to see me.
"No you don't," he said. "You mustn’t. He keeps wanting to give you his love, a gift out and out and you dismiss it. Shrug it off because you're afraid."
"I'm not afraid. It's more like ..." I watched myself in the mirror above the sink. The mask was suddenly a gag. I listened.
"l'll give you what I learned from all this," he said. "Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone