The Memory Keeper's Daughter Quotes
"The snow fell. For the next few hours, they read and talked. Sometimes she caught his hand and put it on her belly to feel the baby move."
"It’s completely natural; it’s in our nature as mammals."
"This poor child will most likely have a serious heart defect. A fatal one. I’m trying to spare us all a terrible grief."
"I have a baby," she said out loud, astonished. "I have a baby in this car."
"He looked so peaceful," David said. "Let’s let him sleep."
"Why do you have to be so stubborn? Why, at least, didn’t you tell me before you called the papers?"
"There’s no shame in it. No reason to keep it a secret."
"You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Norah."
"This is sacred, she found herself thinking, connected through the child in her arms and the child in the earth to everything that lived and ever had."
"The night is as clear as day; the darkness and light are to thee both alike."
"We have committed her body to the elements, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
"You can’t spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster."
"You never knew, anymore, who was going to walk through the door."
"They couldn’t pass them up, their mysteries and possibilities."
"Better watch your step. It’s steep like you wouldn’t believe."
"Palpitations: people used the term freely, to talk about any quickening of the heart."
"Hey, I love you, little guy. But don’t eat that, okay?"
"Ancient seas. The water got trapped inside and crystallized, over centuries."
"The world’s falling to pieces, that’s how it feels."
"I suppose this is the last we can expect to hear from you, moving up in the world and all."
"The relentless pursuit of equity and justice."
"It’s about freedom. It’s about me having a life of my own."
"Elephants in the ear canal," David said, taking the otoscope. "We’d better get home right away."
"You see yourself as the center of the universe," Norah said. "The still point around which everything else revolves."
"I’m not angry. I’m just nervous about Paul. You’re the one who’s angry."
"I have—we all have—great sympathy for your situation. But how likely is it that your daughter, or any of these children, will master any academic skills?"
"She’s six years old," Caroline said. "She’s not ready to learn a trade."
"Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening, and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do you know that everything’s connected to everything else."
"Photography is all about secrets," David said. "The secrets we all have and will never tell."
"It’s not about numbers," Caroline said. "It’s about children. I have a daughter who is six years old."
"I just want to go home and celebrate. I was thinking I’d invite some people over. Bree said she’d come, and the Marshalls—wasn’t Lizzie good on the flute?"
"I don’t know. But what’s that old saying? Do what you love, and the money will follow. Don’t shut the door on his dream."
"A moment might be a thousand different things."
"I'm okay," he said. "You don't need to call Dad."
"I'm fine," he said. "It was just a joke. Never mind."
"Don't close any doors just now," he said. "That's all I'm asking."
"These people," he asked, "from IBM. Do they like flamingos?"
"I'm happy right where I am. You'll get bored with me."
"I don't have those urges anymore," Caroline said.
"Phoebe, thirteen years old, a smile like the sun on her face."
"You gave me little glimpses of Phoebe. Little scraps from the fabric of your lives."
"She goes to school. Public school, with all the other kids."
"There was in the mountains, and perhaps in the world at large, a theory of compensation that held that for everything given something else was immediately and visibly lost."
"He’d helped his father put this roof on, sweat pouring down their faces and sap on their hands, their hammers rising into the sun, into the sharp fragrance of fresh-cut cedar."
"Compliments, seductive as flowers, thorny with their opposites: Yes, you may be smart but you sure are ugly; You may look nice but you didn’t get a brain."
"My parents used to own this place. In fact, I still do own it. I have the deed in a safe. Technically, you’re trespassing."
"That’s why things got saved, old engines and tin cans and milk bottles scattered across the lawns and hills: a spell against need, a hedge against want."
"He sat on the hard bed. His head still throbbed. He lay down and pulled the damp quilt around him."
"She noticed his movement and turned, tapping her palm lightly with a wooden spoon."
"His father—impeccable, precise, sure of everything—had turned into someone else."
"You can’t stop time. You can’t capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down."
"That’s life, David. Would you have imagined yourself, years ago, living in this dumpy little duplex?"
"It’s not the whole truth. David, in some weird way we’re connected, you and I, because of Phoebe."
"I don’t understand. Why can’t you promise? It’s the right thing to do."
"Well, yes, I’m glad for you, Rosemary. He’s a good young man, Stuart. And he loves Jack."
"I’m as old as the hills. That’s how I feel half the time."
"I’ve been accused of trying too hard to rescue people."
"The presence of this woman from the long-lost past had set up a fluttering deep in her heart."
"What are you doing here?" Norah asked. "David died a year ago."
"I’m getting married again," she added. "I’m moving."
"Norah," Caroline said, "what do you remember about the night your son was born?"
"Phoebe did not die," Caroline said evenly. "Phoebe was born with Down’s syndrome."
"She is my child. She was born of my flesh. Protect me? By telling me she’d died?"
"For years I believed in my own innocence," she said. "I believed I’d done the right thing."
"Our father," she said, "who art in heaven hallowed be thy name."
"She’s had a happy life, Norah. I know that’s not much to give you, but it’s true."
"He loved you very much," she said. "David always loved you, Norah."
"It’s time," Norah said. "But you didn’t come to ask about that."
"It wasn’t uncommon, in 1964, to do that. Most doctors would have advised the same."
"I’m okay, I’m okay," she had kept telling the people who helped her out.
"Your life is your life," she went on, more urgently now. "You’re not responsible for what happened."
"It’s just—I thought I’d like to get to know her. Day by day. I mean, she is my sister."