Susan Beth Pfeffer Quotes

Matt looked up kids from his high school class. Only three were listed as dead, but a bunch were listed as missing/presumed dead. As a test, he looked us up, but none of our names were on any of the lists. And that’s how we know we’re alive this Memorial Day.

I wonder if I’ll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we’re living or no life at all.

He walked out of the office to find Kevin Daley standing there. ‘I like your style,’ Kevin said. Thank you,’ Alex said. ‘I like it, too.

It wouldn’t be New Year’s without a resolution. I’ve resolved to take a moment every day for the rest of my life to appreciate what I have.

I feel myself shriveling along with my world, getting smaller and harder. I’m turning into a rock, and in some ways that’s good, because rocks last forever. But if this is how I’m going to last forever, then I don’t want to.

…when I came back, I found Mom sobbing at the kitchen table…Then I asked her what had happened. ‘Nothing,’she said. ‘I was thinking about that man…I started thinking about…if he and his wife and their other child are okay, and I don’t know. It just got to me.’ ‘I know,’ I said, because I did know. Sometimes it’s safer to cry about people you don’t know than to think about people you really love.

Great, the worlds coming to an end and we’re fixing it with Band-Aids

Here’s the funny thing about the world coming to an end. Once it gets going, it doesn’t seem to stop.

The Christmas after Mom & Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dads apartment. I thought that was great. I was all in favor of my love being paid for with presents. This year all I got was a diary and a secondhand watch. Okay, I know this is corny, but this really is what Christmas is all about.

Even the rats are drowning,’ Alex said. Nah,’ Kevin said. ‘They’ve been taking swimming lessons at the Y.

But it’s our curse and our blessing to remember the past and to know there’s a future. —Charlie

He taught me to trust in tomorrow.