The Truth About Keeping Secrets Quotes

“I heard the universe laugh. One tragedy doesn't disqualify you, it said. There''s still a lifetime of mild irritation to look forward to.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Just because you love something doesn't mean it can't go on without you.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“I'd shut myself out for so long that I had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be included, to be seen, to be heard.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“I wasn’t convinced anyone felt the exact same way I did. That’s the rub about being human, I guess. You have all these tools to express yourself, art and music and poetry and stuff, but no one will ever truly know how you feel unless you somehow manage to create a projection of your brain and play it on to the wall. Even then it might not be as vivid. Even then it might not be as close.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Eventually, 'Dad is dead' turned into 'I will die', which was my introduction to the fear. The fear of gone. The fear of nothing at all, of what happens to me, of I am the main character and the story will crumble if I'm not there to see it through.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“You know that feeling where, like, the world is spinning at a thousand miles an hour and there’s nothing you can do to stop it and then you start to feel like there’s nothing you can do about anything ever?”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Any time I found myself wavering- thinking about death or dying or ends or Dad or the ToD -I'd force myself to think about June instead...
Think about June. Flip my mind overtop of itself, push everything else out until she's all that's left. June laughing at a joke I'd made, or June speaking, or June existing. This didn't serve, exactly, to balance me on the tightrope; it disintegrated the tightrope. It made it so the tightrope had never existed at all. There was no gravity. I could float there, comfortable, and never worry about the fall ever again.
What's the point of living it-
June.
We're all going to die and the universe is indifferent and-
June. Her hands on me and her face close to mine but what does it matter if she, if Dad-
June. June sitting in the driver's seat. Dad decomposing in the driver's seat-
June. Heaven is June in the driver's seat. Hell is June in the driver's seat. There is only June in the driver's seat. And at night, my consciousness would slip away, repeating that smooth, delicious mantra in my head.
There is only June in the driver's seat.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Seeing the body was supposed to be cathartic, but the man in the lipstick wasn’t my dad.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“And ahead of me, June moved like her body had a whole world in it.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Fuck domino effects. Fuck everything happens for a reason. Fuck it, fuck it, absolutely fuck all of it to hell.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“OK,’ I said, like a complete idiot who fantasizes day in and day out about affection like this but shuts down when actually receiving that affection and says fucking OK.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“It’s just, like, when it was good, it was good. There’d be, God, like months at a time where things would be fine. Perfect. He’d be loving and gentle but then it’d all go to shit again and I had to deal with it. And the best way I can explain it is … that you forget what normal is.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“That was the rub of being human. You had all these tools to express yourself, art and music and poetry and stuff, but no one would ever truly know how you felt unless you somehow managed to create a projection of your brain and played it on a wall. Even then, it might not be as vivid. Even then, it might not be as close.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“I got an overwhelming sense that I wasn’t really here.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“There was something picturesque about the scene, the fiery maples and the headstones planted in meticulous rows and the girl in the middle of all of it, sitting cross-legged at the grave that wasn't hers to mind.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“I became obsessed with her hands. How they were kind of perpetually moving, twitching, the knuckles on her skinny fingers popping every time she remembered to crack them, which was often. I liked to watch them when she spoke, when she curled them around the occasional vanilla latte, when she ran them through her hair. I loved June's hands. I loved June's collarbone. I loved June's hair. I loved her laugh and her nose and her purple varsity jacket. I loved June's everything.
I was beginning to think I loved without there needing to be a common noun to follow.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“Oh, for sure. I took one look at you and thought, ‘Shit, that girl looks like she has a significant ecological footprint.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“(‘Well, yes, the service was lovely, but that girl’s lower half was a bit off-centre, don’t you think?’)”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets