Penpal Quotes
"It wasn’t greed that beset her; it was the result of wanting many things equally but not having the emotional resources to settle arbitrarily on just one."
"As children we have terrific and terrible times – events that, as we experience them, seem to be the most important things that have ever happened to us – but more often than not we forget them."
"We all have voids in our narratives – lost time that we attempt to reclaim with best guesses."
"Sometimes forgetting is the gift that we give ourselves, and when we do, it’s back to the void, and it’s time for more guesses toward a better life."
"Our lives are so short that it seems a crime to squander any of it by forgetting. Memories extend our lives backward through time, making them feel longer."
"Because if I went any farther, I’d be coming out!"
"I was finally safe. Tears started flowing down my face, and I sobbed heavily while the three of us went inside."
"This isn’t how you spell my name … I didn’t write this letter."
"I had never written anything important in pen before; everything of any consequence that I had ever marked on a page was only as permanent as I wanted it to be."
"Although there was no way to determine exactly why that had been, it was suggested that the pencil marks washed out much too easily, and so to be safe, we should use ink from that point on."
"With my remaining time, I took to decorating the balloon."
"Deciding that a plain balloon was actually better than one with a drawing on it, I put the marker away."
"The ink had already begun to run in outward arcs where the water touched it."
"There was a collective groan in protest; she did this frequently."
"All at once, each kid yelled whatever their chosen launch word was, and the courtyard became a carnival as two dozen brightly colored floating balls filled the sky."
"It was one of the happiest days that I had ever had."
"Day after day, I arrived at school excited but left dejected at the fact that my letter hadn’t arrived yet."
"The only thing in the envelope was a Polaroid, but I couldn’t make out what the image was."
"The school year pressed on, and the letters had stopped coming for nearly all of the other students; after all, you can only continue a written correspondence with a kindergartener for so long."
"My drawer was a mausoleum of my incomplete collections."
"I tried to sleep, but I was feeling restless."
"She said it as if it was excellent news, but I had thought that we had more time in the house."
"Boxes was only an outside cat when he escaped."
"We didn’t have much, and I had already packed up all my clothes at my mom’s request."
"I didn’t even get to grab the rest of my boxed clothes as my mom ushered me out of my room and out the back door."
"Our parents had pooled their money to get us these walkie-talkies."
"Suddenly, all actions become covert by default – like when two friends begin whispering, and after a while they find that their voices are still hushed, but they can’t remember why."
"I had been in many situations before where I wanted to laugh but couldn’t; I was a veteran of those battles."
"The whole world went white for a moment, and even after Josh moved the light, its impression remained."
"It was less dangerous than him jumping over the fence and running around the neighborhood."
"The fact that a place this untamed was wedged between stretches of houses and neighborhoods made it seem even more bizarre."
"My heart sank, and I prepared myself emotionally for what I was about to see."
"Because I never put any fucking blankets or bowls under the house for Boxes. You think you were the only one to find them there?"
"An aerial view of my neighborhood would give one the impression that an enormous squid had once died in the woods, only to be found by some adventuring entrepreneur who paved roads over its tentacles."
"Even as a child, I was struck by how beautiful it was, and often Josh and I would go over there to walk on the iced grass and have sword fights with the icicles."
"She never brought a book or a magazine, never had a crossword puzzle or a word-search; I think she came out on those days just to visit."
"We guessed at this until Mrs. Maggie, who was eavesdropping, interjected and said that it would depend on which ocean it was and what the currents were like."
"Mrs. Maggie said that Tom should be home any day and that she would ask him if he saw any balloons in the sky while he was flying."
"I pleaded with my mom to let me travel as freely as the other kids did, and gradually her reflexive dismissal wavered."
"We were the world's worst cartographers, but we were making progress."
"Her name is Mrs. Maggie. She lives in that house you were in front of – the white one."
"I know now that Mrs. Maggie had Alzheimer’s disease."
"Doubt had already started to sink into my mind as we began paddling in the direction of my house."
"It was running in the same direction we were pointed."
"We each held onto a separate piece of Styrofoam, but we knew individual pieces wouldn’t suffice from when we had first built the raft."
"There were greater problems than the congestion of trees now."
"Our breath steamed in the cool air, and every now and then, a violent shiver would quake through my still-soaked body."
"I held my breath. It was answered by the sound of dead leaves being crushed."
"Defeated and terrified, I collapsed at the base of the tree and wrapped my arms around my knees, pressing them to my chest."
"It was the closest I had even been to a deer before – or since, for that matter."
"We trod through the woods, moving as the dead might move."
"That’s just the way the world is – they have their own lives, and as they live them, sometimes that takes them out of yours."
"The fact that I was relatively personable in class did little to counter the fact that most of my classmates recognized me as the kid who sat alone at lunch."
"There’s an expression that says 'you have to have money to make money,' and while friendship itself is surely priceless, making friends seems to operate by the same rules."
"I felt selfish for attempting to force the blame onto Josh just to justify my desire to see his sister."
"Time and distance can wreak havoc on a friendship if you let it, and we had both been complicit in the atrophying of our relationship."
"They say that if you’re quiet, and you look for long enough, you can still see the monster walking around the mall now since no one’s there to bother it. But what’s weird is everyone who’s ever seen it tells a different story of what it looks like."
"Injecting real horror into the life of a horror fan seemed like an obvious move; that was exactly what I had just done."
"When you are confronted with something in the world that simply doesn’t belong, your mind tries to convince itself that it is dreaming."
"I exploded. 'Why did it take them so long to shut off her goddamned phone?!'"
"The fact that we lived so close to one another made the arrangements much easier for our parents, who seemed to work constantly."
"As time moved along, I found it more difficult to imagine doing things without Josh."
"I forced a smile and walked into the dining room as they sang 'Happy Birthday'."
"To become a participant rather than the subject of the gag, I said to him that just because he had given me that card, he shouldn’t think that I’d kiss him later."
"I was filled with an intense appreciation for my mom’s thoughtfulness, but this feeling was easily overpowered by the emotions resurrected by the returning memories I’d tried so hard to bury."
"I repeatedly opened my mouth as if words would just pour out and catch the interest of my friend, but I would silently shut it each time."
"Each time she would give me a piece of my past, I could feel myself becoming more complete – the structure of my autobiography finally falling into place with the connecting of milestones or the introduction of a never-known fact."
"The last conversation that I had with my mother left me with what I’ll now share with you."
"Our minds work hard to avoid dissonance – if we hold a belief strongly enough, our minds will forcefully reject conflicting evidence so that we can maintain the integrity of our understanding of the world."
"As the story became clearer with each detail revealed through the conversations with my mother, I had watched the pieces all fall into place, but I still couldn’t understand why it had all stopped so long ago."
"I think about Josh. I loved him then, and I love him even still. I miss him more now that I know I’ll never see him again."
"The world is a cruel place made crueler still by man. There would be no justice for my friend, no final confrontation, no vengeance; it’s been over for almost a decade now for everyone but me."