The Pact Quotes

“Ah, how youth is wasted on the young, she says. It is our great shame and tragedy that we don’t see how beautiful we are until later, when it’s gone, and we look back and wonder why we didn’t see, why we didn’t know. Why we didn’t seize it and use it to conquer the world.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“as you get older, the sight of young people can bring a tear to the eye. Youth: so beautiful, so full of innocence, curiosity and hope. Maybe it’s because I know I’m looking at the blemish-free faces of people who have yet to experience real pain, have yet to have their lives irrevocably compromised.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“You needed a mum, and I was the best mum I could be. But perhaps I forgot to be a person.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“They're not celebrating anything, baby girl, they're asking for approval. These are advertising posters, they're shop windows displaying their wares, like, well, like prostitutes, frankly, like you see in the knocking-shop fronts in Amsterdam. Honestly, Rosie, some of them may as well put a price tag on and have done with it. I might be stuck in the ice age, my love, but at least we didn't confuse being attractive with being a commodity.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“You can't force memory; you can't make it happen. It has to take you by surprise.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“Why am I telling you this? I'm telling me this. I'm pouring words into myself. I'm making myself exist with words.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“If you hear me, will I exist?”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact

“We think we’ve got over things, don’t we? We think we’ve made our peace with trauma, that we’re strong again. We keep going, we smile, we manage day to day. Then something comes along, something so very small compared to things we’ve faced before, something we think we can more than handle, and it floors us once more. And we realise we’re not strong after all. The fault lines have not healed over. We’re not living, not really. We’re still surviving.”
― S.E. Lynes, The Pact