Down in Flames Quotes

“They cut you open so many times when you were a kid, and you never let it break you. All that pain and sickness didn’t turn you into something less. But me? I fell to pieces as soon as my body couldn’t do everything I expected, and I let that bitterness infect the whole damn family. Strong. Ha!” He began to laugh. “You’re stronger than all of us.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“West had wanted to prove to himself that he could eat pain, bite by bite, just like the rest of his family, but all he'd done was make it clear to the man he admired more than anything that he'd always be the runt of the litter.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“Trust me, kid,” Michael rasped. “There’s no end to what I’m willing to do to keep you with me. All you’ve got to do is come home and find out.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“That’s what this bronc-busting thing is all about, isn’t it? Climbing out of that bubble your folks have kept you in all these years. Taking charge of your own life, and to hell with what anybody else has to say about it?”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“They’d never been more at odds than they were right now, and he hated not knowing what to expect. But he only had himself to blame. In a panicked effort to save their friendship, he’d distanced himself when Michael was at his most vulnerable. In the end, he was the one who’d done the damage. Their easy camaraderie had been lost, replaced with secrets and suspicion.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“It’s just that I never realized how you’d become such an important part of my life until you stopped showing up.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“By the time he’d been healthy enough to start school—six open-heart surgeries late—lying had already become a way of life. I feel fine. I’m better now. And most importantly: my mom said it was okay. Lying was the only thing that had given him some semblance of normalcy as a child, and he was wickedly good at it because no one ever saw it coming. Until now.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames

“When he sat a bronco, it was for a very different reason. He rode to prove he could take as much punishment as his old man ever did.”
― Parker St. John, Down in Flames