It Happens All the Time Quotes

“A man doesn't have to be evil in order to sexually assault women,” Vanessa said. “Most rapists don't look like what we're programmed to believe they should – they're not greasy-haired monsters who jump out from behind the bushes and tie up their victims in their basements. More often, they're someone's typical father, husband, brother, or son – but what they do to women is monstrous.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“The world is full of seemingly nice guys who assault women. Guys who don't have healthy attitudes about women and sex in general, who see sex as something they are entitled to, who hurt women and don't even know they are doing it because we don't educate our young men on how not to become rapists.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“There are some wounds unreachable by words, some sins immune to apology.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“It's just drinks,” Heather said, lifting the second cocktail up and smiling at the men, too. “It doesn't mean anything else.”
I nodded, but I didn't know how to tell her how wrong she was. That it's possible for a man to interpret a woman's initial permission as license to steamroll over any boundary she might set after that. That once a woman says yes, it's possible a man might not give a shit when she changes her mind. He might tear off her clothes; he might bruise her body and send splinters of blistering fear into her soul. He might do this even if he's someone she knows, someone she loves and trusts. And then she might end up in a bar with a fake smile plastered on her face, trying to act like none of it mattered, trying to believe, despite the agony deep down inside her bones, that she's over what he did, desperate to pretend she's safe.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“Our society always seems to blame the victim not the perpetrator, for a sexual crime. It says a woman shouldn't dress provocatively or drink alcohol or have any kind of flirtation or interaction with a man because that means she is asking for him to do whatever he wants to do to her, even after she tells him no.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I nodded, but I didn't know how to tell her how wrong she was. That it's possible for a man to interpret a woman's initial permission as license to steamroll any boundary she may set after that. That once a woman says yes, it's possible a man might not give a shit when she changes her mind.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“Maybe he was too drunk to hear me when I told him to stop. Maybe I didn’t say it loudly enough. Maybe I didn’t say it enough times.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I felt numb, I felt empty. I was a shell, an abandoned chrysalis, a tomb lying in wait for the dead”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“The girl I’d been just an hour ago was gone; she’d been obliterated. I had no idea who I was, now.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I think under the right set of circumstances,” Mason said, carefully, his eyes not leaving mine, “pretty much anyone is capable of horrific behavior.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“No, I thought. No way. I love her too much. I would never do that. And then again, those two words, her voice, exploding inside my head: “Tyler, wait!”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I want to rewind the clock, take back the night when the world shattered. I want to erase everything that went wrong.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time