Before She Disappeared Quotes

“Later came the hard knowledge that no one can save you from yourself.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“There’s power in humility. It’s one of the toughest lessons I’ve had to learn.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“How terrible to lose a child most of the world never knew was missing.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“So many think we must share the same beliefs to get along. In my experience, sharing the same fear is a far more effective strategy.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Maybe the question shouldn’t be why am I doing this, but why isn’t everyone looking?”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Feel your feels, as the saying goes. Except so many feelings are hard to take.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“They have to get through each day, which makes truth a fickle companion.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Funny, the things you can grow up not wanting, then suddenly crave with single-minded obsession.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“People all over really are the same. They want to fall in love. They're glad to survive each day. They pray their children will have a better life than they did. These truths bind us.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“If clothes are camouflage, then scars are exclamation points of honesty.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“I love sex. The harder the better. A moment where I don’t have to think, where I can escape my own mind? Afterwards, I might even get a good night’s sleep. But the minute it’s over, you’re gonna want what you’re gonna want, and I’m still gonna be me.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“In this day and age of racial tension, gender fluidity, and political polarization, how do you most define yourself?”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“There’s power in humility. It’s one of the toughest lessons I’ve had to learn. Like the other souls in this room, I live on unsteady ground. Each moment is a choice and for all my good choices, I’m a single mistake away from having to start my journey all over again.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“What I gleaned: Especially in situations where technology has failed, the right person asking the right questions can make all the difference. That total strangers care that much for the missing among us, I found powerful—though also heartbreaking. So this book is for the dedicated, whether they’re amateur detectives, professional pilots, registered dog handlers,”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“In the end, it’s not much of a decision at all. Angelique. I am here to find Angelique. To save a girl. To redeem a sin I can never change. And maybe to chase a bullet I dodged ten years ago. I turn left, down the end of the hall to the fire escape. Then, I vanish into the dark.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“I hate the raw edge to my voice, but I can’t stop it. These cases shouldn’t be personal to me. But they are. That’s the thing I can’t help, and Paul couldn’t understand.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Angel … She couldn’t see it. Sometimes she was too smart, too capable. She didn’t understand what it meant to be a just a regular girl like me. She didn’t understand that sometimes, her being her, just made me feel bad.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Problem solvers, doers. Life hasn’t always been kind to them, but it’s made them stronger, more determined. Opportunity isn’t given, it must be made.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“found this man. I fell in love with his kindness, his patience. He saw me, all of me, and he didn’t turn away. He let me in. He held back my hair while I puked my way through detox. He spoonfed me broth while I slowly fought my way back to living.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Because I’ve been to war, and it still wasn’t as scary as living around here.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“It’s cataloguing all my sins that has me hung up. For all my talk of honesty, there’s only so much scrutiny I can handle. Though asking for forgiveness is also an issue. How do you apologize to the dead?”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“It’s a popular trick among the streetwise to appear richer than they are.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“It’s been a hard day. And I’m tired and alone. And white. Dear God, when did I become this impossibly glow-in-the-dark neon white, so that everyone stares at me and no one knows me? My skin color has made me the enemy, a walking advertisement for entitlement and privilege except I don’t feel like any of those things. I feel like I’ve always felt. Broken. As if the whole rest of the world knows something I don’t. Feels things I can’t. Connects in ways I’ve never learned how.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Then another possibility came to me, scarier and sadder than all the others. She could’ve been kidnapped to serve as recruitment bait. A quiet, pretty immigrant teen. Held against her will, then sent out to bus stops and train stations to meet other unsuspecting teens and lure them over to meet her “friends”: sex traffickers, pimps, dope dealers.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Most people don’t realize what a financial luxury privacy is. An individual bedroom, time alone, designated workspace: These things cost money. Angelique got to sleep in a shared family room, while probably doing homework on the kitchen table on a refurbished laptop after her brother had his turn.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. Ten days, ten months, ten years, you never know when the next craving is going to hit, and in those moments, a single connection can make all the difference.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Paul accused me of remaining an addict even after I stopped drinking. I don’t think he understood that’s exactly how it works. I am my demons, and my demons are me. Some days I do all the talking and some days my monster does all the drinking, but every day it’s all me.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“Securing permission is not always this easy. I’ve been thrown out of homes. Had beer bottles tossed at my head, vicious threats spewed in my face. For some, rage is easier to handle. And many families do have secrets to hide.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“wish I had an answer for her. Something simple like Because, or poignant, such as Every child deserves to be found, or defiant, like Why not? But the truth is, she’s probably heard it all by now. A whole torrent of words and reasons. Instead of being given the one thing she wants most: answers.”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared

“think of this often, drifting from community to community, always being the stranger and never the neighbor. People all over really are the same. They want to fall in love. They’re glad to survive each day. They pray their children will have a better life than they did. These truths bind”
― Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared