The Hour I First Believed Quotes

“Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“I don't know. Maybe we're all chaos theorists. Lovers of pattern and predictability, we're scared shitless of explosive change. But we're fascinated by it, too. Drawn to it. Travelers tap their brakes to ogle the mutilation and mangled metal on the side of the interstate, and the traffic backs up for miles. Hijacked planes crash into skyscrapers, breached levees drown a city, and CNN and the networks rush to the scene so that we can all sit in front of our TVs and feast on the footage. Stare, stunned, at the pandemonium--the devils let loose from their cages.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“that's the funny thing about mazes: what's baffling on the ground begins to makes sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself". (p. 717)”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laugher, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry... Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind?”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“Sometimes when you go looking for what you want, you run right into what you need.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“Sarcasm is a suit of armor.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“It's like there's this wave coming toward me, but there's nothing I can do about it. And then it reaches me, crashes over me and...and I'm done for another day. I just give up. Give in to it. Because how do you stop a wave?

You don't. And you're wise to recognize your powerlessness to do so. But what you can do is learn how to negotiate this wave. Work within the context of its inevitability.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“..."I love you" was just three meaningless words without the actions that went with them”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“I wasn't a cynic; I was a banged-up realist.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“It just wasn't for me, and anyway, those people were a lot more far gone than I was. More in my father's league than mine. I just cut back a little. Less beer and liquor, more jogging. I was fine.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“God, that’s always the thing you have to decide with high school kids: what to make an issue of, what to let go.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“...there was no shorthand for "I'm sorry." You were obliged to speak those two words.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“[Writing about themselves] gives them wings, so that they can rise above the confounding maze of their lives and, from that perspective, begin to see the patterns and dead ends of their pasts, and a way out. That's the funny thing about mazes; what's baffling on the ground begins to make sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed

“I do believe that there's life after love, and also that there is love, still, after a life is over.”
― Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed