The Great Alone Quotes
"That spring, rain fell in great sweeping gusts that rattled the rooftops."
"People who loved each other snapped and fights erupted as the water rose and the rain continued."
"Weather like this brought out the darkness in her father."
"The only thing worse than being the new girl in junior high was drawing attention to yourself."
"She often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel."
"It didn’t help to talk about her worries. What was the point of confession?"
"It felt to her as if her family stood poised on the edge of a great precipice."
"People come here from all over to stock up on supplies. It’s kind of the last outpost of civilization."
"Alaska isn’t about who you were when you headed this way. It’s about who you become."
"Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way."
"In Alaska you can make one mistake. One. The second one will kill you."
"It’s Alaska, though. The winters are dark as shit and we don’t have TV."
"I thought I was going to have to sit with Axle for the rest of the year."
"This is what the world should be, Red. People helping each other."
"It’s supposed to smoke and dry at the same time."
"We might live in the bush, but we go to Homer and Sterling and Soldotna."
"When men are starving and we have food, will they care that she’s just a girl?"
"It’s only a matter of time before World War Three starts."
"You want to be a victim or a survivor, Lenora?"
"You could lose your parents or your life on a normal Sunday, just out walking in the snow...gone."
"Every time Matthew closed his eyes, wouldn’t he see it again? Wouldn’t he wake screaming from nightmares for the rest of his life?"
"Winter had claimed one of them; one who had been born here, who knew how to survive."
"The world could tumble, change radically in two days, with just one less person living in it."
"A girl was like a kite; without her mother’s strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds."
"In literature, death was many things—a message, catharsis, retribution."
"In real life, it wasn’t like that. It was sadness opening up inside of you, changing how you saw the world."
"The truth was this: Winter had only just begun."
"You either belong here, wild and untamed yourself, or you don’t."
"Those who come for beauty alone, or for some imaginary life, or those who seek safety, will fail."
"In the vast expanse of this unpredictable wilderness, you will either become your best self and flourish, or you will run away, screaming, from the dark and the cold and the hardship."
"There is no middle ground, no safe place; not here, in the Great Alone."
"For we few, the sturdy, the strong, the dreamers, Alaska is home, always and forever."
"You learn who you are. Not who you dream of being, not who you imagined you were, not who you were raised to be."
"It’s life. Things don’t always go the way you expect."
"I have my struggles, too. And we were kids then. We’re not now."
"You’d better go, Matthew. Our son is not very good at waiting for what he wants."