Before the Devil Breaks You Quotes

“We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity. We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and our present. The future is unwritten. This is a book about ghosts. For we live in a haunted house.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“There was such fear in the world. But love was everywhere if you looked. It was the best thing about humans. That they could stare into the abyss and still open up their hearts. A spit in the eye to fear.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“It’s Yiddish. Like…Ikh hob dikh lib.” Evie narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What does that mean?” Sam smiled. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“All the times I say, ‘Don’t see me’? With you, I wish I had an opposite power: See me. See me, Evie. See all of me. There’s a fella who loves you right here. I’m not perfect. I’m a handful. But you know what? So are you. There. Not sugarcoating it.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“But how did you fight an enemy who never fought fair? Didn’t you have to break the rules to win against the Devil?”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“He loved her. Was in love with her. Had always loved her. And it seemed that she loved him, too. It was funny how the world could change on a dime like that. One minute, you were some poor chump pining after a girl you thought didn’t feel the same way about you, and the next, you were lying together, arms entwined, chest to chest, so close you could feel her heartbeat under her soft skin. You were looking into her eyes and seeing your whole future written there.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“As I write this, we are in an especially divisive era in American politics. There are questions about who holds power, who abuses it, who profits from it, and at what cost to our democracy. It is a time of questions about what makes us American, of shifting identities, inclusion and exclusion, protest, civil and human rights, the strength of our compassion versus the weakness of our fears, and the seductive lure of a mythic "great" past that never was versus the need for the consciousness and responsibility necessary if we are truly to live up to the rich promise of "We the People."

We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity.

We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and present. The future is unwritten.

This is a book about ghosts.

For we live in a haunted house.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Depressive,” Evie said, testing the word on her tongue. “I didn’t know there was a name for that feeling. Like there’s a rain cloud in your soul.” She knew that feeling well. Sometimes she was the life of the party. But other times she was lonely, bleak, and sick with disgust at herself, and certain that the people who said they loved her were only pretending. She called these times the “too muches”: too much feeling, like opening a door and seeing, really seeing, into some deep, existential loneliness underlying everything. When the “too muches” arrived, Evie feared that whatever hope lived inside her would drown from the storm of her own aching sadness.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“It was funny how their odd little family of friends had changed him. Made him feel safe. Theta, Memphis, Henry, Jericho, Mabel, Ling, Isaiah, and especially Evie. They’d been there for him. Opened the parts of him he was afraid would be closed off forever. Why had he wasted so much time bottling up his feelings? What did that ever get anybody but dumb fights? He had friends. He had a home in them. And Evie was home, too.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Before the Devil breaks you, first he will make you love him. Beware, little sister. Beware the King of Crows!”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“The land is old, the land is vast, he has no future, he has no past, his coat is sewn with many woes, he'll bring the dead, the King of Crows.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Because I’m not enough, she thought. That was the terrible echo shouting up at her: Fraud, fraud, fraud. She got drunk and talked too much and danced on tables. She had a temper and a sharp tongue, and she often blurted out things she instantly regretted. Worst of all, she suspected that was who she truly was—not so much a bright young thing as a messy young thing.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“But isn’t that strange and wonderful unpredictability part of humanity? Aren’t all of our differences what already make us a great nation?”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“I mean that she was complicated. Everybody is,” Ling said quietly. “Don’t erase her like that. She deserves better.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“People are…” Mabel wheezed. “Mostly good, you…” Wheeze. “Know? Mostly.” She tried to take a breath. It was hard. Like breathing through layers of gauze. Where were her parents? She loved them so. “Mostly. I believe that with…” A bloody cough tore through Mabel’s lungs. “… With all my… all my heart.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“I’ll be counting the cats when I come over. There better be the same number each time.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“You must work always to understand your own heart so that it cannot be used against you.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“People want to be safe, not free.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Theta rolled over, facing Evie, their noses nearly touching. “Evil?” “Yes?” “I love you. Now, shut up and go to sleep.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“What I can’t figure out is why you gotta make yourself crackers trying to be somebody you can’t ever be instead of just letting yourself be the one and only Evie O’Neill.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Even Evie believed in something, that something being Evie a lot of the time.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“the mural, there were painted lines for the Underground, like scars stretched across the skin of the infected nation. There were wounds and then there were wounds.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“The Voice of Tomorrow
America, America, will you listen to the story of you?
You bruised mountains, purpled by majesty.
You shining seas that refuse to see.
You, haunted by ghosts of dreams,
From the many, one; the one, many.
I am in you and of you, America.
You of amber waving grain, shining
Like fool's gold in a plentiful river.
I am the dream coming, yes,
The Voice of Tomorrow
Ringing in freedom's ear.
Do you hear it now?
Calling, calling, all:
Listen, America -
I am the story.
I am you.
I am.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“In this life, you have to work with people you dislike. You find compromises. But sometimes you find that a person's beliefs are so harmful that you must speak against them. You can't let such harmful statements stand without challenge. They have a tendency to grow into tumors.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“When did you become a cynic?” Sam asked. Evie smiled. “When I found out I was a little girl.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Grinning, he grabbed his fisherman’s cap and coat. “I love you,” he whispered quietly. “Ikh hob dikh lib.” He kissed Evie’s head. She rustled in her sleep, turning away. “Fine. I see how it is. I just wasted my best Yiddish on you,” Sam joked to himself.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Alliteration. It’s when you repeat the same consonant in a phrase,” Memphis explained. “Huh. I was hoping it was something dirty.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Evie yanked him to safety by the edge of his shirt, ripping it. “Thanks. You owe me a shirt,” Sam said. “You owe me twenty dollars.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“Henry looked from Ling to Alma and back again. His mouth slid into a sly smile. “Oh my.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You