The Gap Year Quotes

“I read once that it takes fourteen miles for an oil tanker to change course. The same change for mothers and daughters must take a nearly equal number of years. But in all those miles and years there does come one precise moment, one discrete point in an infinite vastness, when you start heading in an entirely new direction. I know that, for better or for worse, Aubrey and I have hit that moment when instead of arguing with me, fighting to convince me to accept what she wants, she states in a steady, even way that doesn't ask for my permission or seem ready to bristle when I don't offer it, "Mom, I have to go.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“Going beyond sarcasm straight to out-and-out insult is delicious, like wriggling out of a pair of Spanx.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“Do you like the sunset I ordered for you?”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“In a lot of ways, Mom is kind of badass.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“the instant she made a point of telling me I was just as good as them, I saw that the whole question was open to debate and she was cheering me on because I was on the losing team”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“As she swallow a few more drops, I whisper to my child's namesake, "The first of untold numbers of sweet things you will taste in this life." It is my blessing.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I can't recall consciously deciding to trick time, but that is what has happened. Somehow Martin and I, instead of being leashed for all eternity to what happened sixteen years ago, instead of that being the huge Before and After defining my life, have been set free.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I guess I have to thank Shupe and all that marching for something, because my butt is as springy as a bag of Gummi Bears.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“That is when I realize that I have the same gift he does: We can give each other back our youth.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I find it hard to hate a man who brings you exactly what you didn't even know you craved.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“How exactly are you supposed to force your way into someone's life? Like I said, I have nothing she wants anymore. Not even, or especially not, my love.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“At almost any time in the past sixteen years, hearing him admit how much the sound of my voice, even channeled through our daughter, still affected him would have felt like winning. Today, it's close to irrelevant.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I want to go to the mother, take her hand, and tell her that although she and her daughter believe that every bad choice the daughter has ever made in life is her fault, it's not. It's really, really not.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I guess that's what my dad did. Stopped agreeing with reality. I could do it for as long as it took me to get from my classroom to the office. He managed it for sixteen years. He must have had more mental discipline than me. Or maybe it wasn't that much of an effort to pretend that I didn't exist.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I would like whispering with someone who is like me. But no one is.

I think it is because my sizzle doesn't match anyone else's. I want something to happen so bad that it sizzles inside of me. It never stops, but it also never fits any of the choices presented.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I guess that after three straight years of my not being anything -- not emo, not Christian, not prep, not jock, not ghetto, not punk, not hipster, not skank, not prude, just a half-assed band geek -- no one can believe I'd do anything so well defined as lie. I like my new superpower.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“My father." I don't even know what punctuation mark to put after those two words. Lots of exclamation points!!! One lonely question mark? I need a cartoon balloon with every symbol available in it. Something that stands for stunned/terrified/pissed off/excited/depressed/happy/mad.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“So much is exploding inside of me that I feel like a bag of Orville Redenbacher's in the microwave. Too much has happened all at once. I stagnated for years with nothing happening, and now, all in one day, too much is happening.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year