Ruta Sepetys Quotes

29 Sourced Quotes

What do you do with all this bank, Josie? Be a lot easier if you just lifted your skirt. The only reason I'd lift my skirt is to pull out my pistol and plug you in the head.

Ruta Sepetys
Somehow I had to turn the salted peanuts in the cigar box into petits fours.

Ruta Sepetys
But wasn't there some sort of rule that said parents had to be smarter than their kids? It didn't seem fair.

Ruta Sepetys
I stared at the enormous homes, the landscaping and flower beds immaculate. It was as if dollar bills, instead of leaves, hung from the trees.

Ruta Sepetys
I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.

Ruta Sepetys
Some things just won't go away, no matter how hard you scrub.

Ruta Sepetys
Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There's love and emotion trying to express itself, but at the time, it just ends up being awkward.

Ruta Sepetys
Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch.

Ruta Sepetys
Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.

Ruta Sepetys
You stand for what is right, Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.

Ruta Sepetys
What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn't know the question?

Ruta Sepetys
He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot. We were about to become cigarettes.

Ruta Sepetys
We all laced together—a brothel madam, an English professor, a mute cook, a quadroon cabbie, and me, the girl carrying a bucket of lies and throwing them like confetti.

Ruta Sepetys
I shut the bathroom door and caught sight of my face in the mirror. I had no idea how quickly it was to change, to fade. If I had, I would have stared at my reflection, memorizing it. It was the last time I would look into a real mirror for more than a decade.

Ruta Sepetys
Andrius, I'm...scared." He stopped and turned to me. "No. Don't be scared. Don't give them anything Lina, not even your fear.

Ruta Sepetys
Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start.

Ruta Sepetys
My breathing slowed. I shaded her thick chestnut hair resting in a smooth curve against her face, a large bruise blazing across her cheek. I paused, looking over my shoulder to make certain I was alone. I drew her eye makeup, smudged by tears. In her watery eyes I drew the reflection of the commander, standing in front of her, his fist clenched. I continued to sketch, exhaled, and shook out my hands.

Ruta Sepetys
People I didn't know formed a circle around me, sheltering me from view. They escorted me safely back to our jurta, undetected. They didn't ask for anything. They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.

Ruta Sepetys
Charlie Marlowe never wrote horror, but somehow horror was writing Charlie Marlowe.

Ruta Sepetys
Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy—love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.

Ruta Sepetys
I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.

Ruta Sepetys
Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way. But it's far more sincere in its clumsiness than those distinguished men you read about in books. Your father was very clumsy.

Ruta Sepetys
I looked down at the little pink face in the bundle. A newborn. The child had been alive only minutes but was already considered a criminal by the Soviets.

Ruta Sepetys
We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean.

Ruta Sepetys
Tragedy was a big social event, and everyone wanted in on it.

Ruta Sepetys
It amazed me how some people could touch an instrument and create something so beautiful, and when others tried, like me, it just sounded like mangled noise.

Ruta Sepetys
Willie said normal was boring and that I should be grateful that I had a touch of spice. She said no one cared about boring people, and when they died, they were forgotten, like something that slips behind the dresser.

Ruta Sepetys
I leapt eagerly into books. The characters' lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.

Ruta Sepetys
How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he have liked me

Ruta Sepetys