Picture Me Gone Quotes

“I will not always be happy, but perhaps, if I'm lucky, I will be spared the agony of adding pain to the world.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“So much relies on one person assuming the other is telling the truth. If a person can lie to you about one thing, he can lie about something else.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“I've noticed that the magic getting along with someone isn't really magic. If you break it down, you can see how it happens. You say something a bit off-center and see if they react. If they get it, they push it a bit further. Then it's your turn again. And theirs. And so on, until it's banter. Once it's banter, it's friendship.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“So much of translating, Gil once told me, takes place in an imaginary space where the writer and the translator come together. It is not necessary to sympathize with the writer, to agree with what he's written. But it is necessary to walk alongside and stay in step. It's harder, he says, when the other person has a bad limp or stops and starts all the time or moves erratically. It is hardest of all when the story comes from a place the translator himself can't go.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Not everything you want to know is explained properly on Google.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Feeling are like three-year-olds. They're not rational. They're just there.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“La idea de no tener una lengua materna me preocupa. ¿Es como sentirte un nómada dentro de tu propia cabeza? no me puedo imaginar no tener palabras en las que refugiarme. Ser huérfana de lengua.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Gil has put his book down and is gazing at something inside his head.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“And I think, OK. So a dog isn't the most important thing. But a dog like Honey loves one person completely, unwaveringly, with perfect faith. That has to be more important than most things.
And Gabriel, I say. He has Gabriel too.
Gil says nothing but I know the answer. The answer is that Gabriel can't save Matthew any more than Gil can, or Honey. Or Jake. But we are all woven together, like a piece of cloth, and we all support each other, for better or worse. Gabriel is just a baby but eventually he will see the world and his father as they are: imperfect, dangerous, peppered with betrayals and also with love.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“I would hate to have parents who were always looking over my shoulder, reading my diary, checking my thoughts. I would hate to be exposed. And so, perhaps, when I say I long to be a pane of glass, I am lying. I long for partial obscurity at the same time that I long for someone to know me.
It is confusing and difficult to be me.
Sometimes I I need to cry in order to release the great welling sadness I feel in my head.
For this I need privacy. I do not want anyone to see me and ask why, almost as much as I would like to be comforted.
Somehow, without ever being present, Matthew has exposed all of this, brought it wriggling to the surface like worms. They gather there now, vaguely nostalgic for the dark.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“I wonder at what point a child becomes a person. Does it happen all at once, or slowly, in stages? Is there an age, a week, a moment, at which all the secrets of the universe are revealed and adulthood descends on a cloud from heaven, altering the brain forever? Will the child-me slink off one day, never to return?”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“No seré feliz siempre pero, tal vez, si tengo suerte, no sufriré la angustia de añadir dolor al mundo.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“En teoría, me gustaría llevar una vida transparente. Me gustaría que mi vida fuera tan clara como un cristal, sin nada vergonzoso ni sombras oscuras. Eso es lo que me gustaría. Pero si soy completamente honesta, tengo que admitir secretos demasiado dolorosos incluso para contármelos a mí misma. Hay cosas en las que pienso en la profunda oscuridad de la noche, terrores secretos. ¿Por qué son secretos? Podría contarles fácilmente cómo me siento a cualquiera de mis padres, pero ¿qué me dirían? ¿No te preocupes, cariño, haremos todo lo posible para no morirnos nunca? ¿Nunca jamás te abandonaremos, ni tendremos cáncer ni pasaremos por delante de un autobús ni moriremos de viejos? ¿No te dejaremos sola para que recorras este mundo tan complicado sin nosotros?
Me dejarán. Es lo primero que aprendes que hace que dejes de ser un niño. Algún día yo también moriré, pero eso no me asusta ni la mitad que lo de que me dejen sola. Esa es mi oscuridad. Nada ni nadie puede consolarme.
Odiaría tener unos padres que estuvieran siempre vigilándome, leyendo mi diario, controlando lo que pienso. Detestaría estar expuesta. Así que, tal vez, cuando digo que desearía ser un cristal, estoy mintiendo. Deseo que no me conozcan del todo de la misma forma que anhelo que alguien me conozca.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Me pregunto en qué momento un niño se convierte en un adulto. ¿Pasa de repente o es más bien poco a poco, como por etapas? ¿Hay una edad, una semana, un momento, en el que se revelan todos los secretos del universo y la madurez desciende del cielo en una nube, cambiando el cerebro para siempre? ¿Se escabullirá un día la niña que hay en mí para no volver jamás?
No me puedo imaginar viviendo una vida real, o que alguna vez seré adulta. Me parece una transformación tan increíble... Puede que algún día sea la pareja de alguien o la madre de alguien o el patólogo forense de alguien. Puede que algún día beba demasiado o tenga un hijo del que no le hable a nadie. Puede que algún día huya de todo y tenga mis razones.
Ese yo es imposible de imaginar por mi yo actual.
No me puedo imaginar mayor. No me puedo imaginar diferente de la persona que soy ahora. No me puedo imaginar vieja ni casada ni muerta.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“In theory, I would like to lead a transparent life. I wold like my life to be as clear as a new pane of glass, without anything shameful and no dark shadows. I would like that. But if I am completely honest, I have to acknowledge secrets too painful to even tell myself. There are things I consider in the deep dark of night, secret terrors. Why are they secrets? I could easily tell either of my parents how I feel, but what would they say? Don't worry, darling, we will do our best never to die? We will never ever leave you, never contract cancer or walk in front of a bus or collapse of old age? We will not leave you alone, not ever, to navigate the world and all of its complexities without us?”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“And so, perhaps, when I say I long to be a pane of glass, I am lying. I long for partial obscurity at the same time that I long for someone to know me.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Puedo ver que las relaciones pasadas dejan un destello a su paso, una estela de luz irregular que no desaparece cuando la gente se separa.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Hasta ahora no ha pasado nada trascendental entre nosotros, pero simplemente hablar de cualquier cosa puede ser importante cuando dos personas están en la misma onda. He notado que la magia de llevarse bien con alguien no es realmente magia. Si la analizas, puedes ver cómo sucede. Dices algo un poco fuera de los normal y ves si la otra persona reacciona. Si lo capta, le da una vuelta de tuerca. Luego vuelve a ser tu turno. Y después el suyo. Y así sucesivamente, hasta que empezáis a bromear. Y ya sois amigos.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“El olor de su piel es demasiado familiar para describirlo.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“We are three. Even when we are just two, we are three.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“I've noticed that the magic of getting along with someone isn't really magic. If you break it down, you can see how it happens. You say something a bit off-center and see if they react. If they get it, they push it a bit further. Then it's your turn again. And theirs. And so on, until it's banter. Once it's banter, it's friendship.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Someday I'll understand more of these things. At the moment I just have to think them through. Not everything you want to know is explained properly on Google.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Quick-wittedness can be very lonely.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“You can't shoot animals who've just given birth or are pregnant. Even in America.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Gabriel is just a baby but eventually he will see the world and his father as they are: imperfect, dangerous, peppered with betrayals and also with love.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“In theory, I would like to lead a transparent life. I would like my life to be as clear as a new pane of glass, without anything shameful and no dark shadows. I would like that. But if I am completely honest, I have to acknowledge secrets too painful even to tell myself. There”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“wonder at what point a child becomes a person. Does it happen all at once, or slowly, in stages? Is there an age, a week, a moment, at which all the secrets of the universe are revealed and adulthood descends on a cloud from heaven, altering the brain forever? Will the child-me slink off one day, never to return?”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Tell me, I say, is there some huge adult conspiracy where people lead unimaginably complex lives and pretend it’s normal?”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Suzanne is not a horrible person masquerading as a nice one, just an angry one pretending to be normal.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

“Age is not always the best judge of competence.”
― Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone