Quotes from Lisa Unger

there is nothing certain in life but death. We may labor under the delusion that we know what the day ahead of us holds, what the hour holds. But we don't. We may think that our death—our very certain death—is something distant and remote, an island we might never visit. But for some of us, it's right here, waiting. Just pay attention. You can feel its breath on your neck. I am the agent of uncertainty.

It's not focus, her lesser self whispered. It's selfishness. He doesn't think or care about anything that's not feeding his ego in that moment.

From where I stand, hidden, watching them through the glass, they are the picture of the perfect family. But I know better. What people show the world is rarely the whole truth, especially these days when everything must be curated and cropped, filtered and brightened. Real life is messy and complicated. Ugly.

She'd spun a web around Maggie's son without his knowing it, without even perhaps her intention. Spider silk was stronger than chain if you happened to be a fly. There

But there was something more true, more solid about loving someone through change.

But really it's a reminder that every moment is precious, and that nothing matters as much as you think it does. Because death is certain, its time uncertain.

All this time, she'd wondered how she could live knowing what darkness awaited. With Shawn, she realized all of it, light and dark, life and death, was one terrible, beautiful mingle, and that the whole point was to just live well, while you could.

First you were the kid, no one taking you seriously. And then, all of a sudden, people much younger were in positions of authority, and you were supposed to listen to them. It was truly weird.

Emily thought maybe it was simpler than that: Some people gave money instead of love because it was all they had to give. A full bank account and a life of good deeds achieved with money didn't mean a full heart or a giving soul—often just the opposite.

Here we free ourselves of distractions and try to be present in a world that conspires against it

Are we not at least partially responsible for keeping ourselves safe, for lowering the risks in our lives?" he asks. "Locking doors, staying vigilant on the street? No one has a right to hurt us, even in a careless moment. But we have some—some—control over our level of risk." "What are we talking about here?

Nothing is ever perfect, he wanted to say. Wanting everything to be perfect is a recipe for misery.

The more you must assert your own reality to people, the crazier you seem.

The years grew over that embrace like a vine.

But words are all we have, their essence the only passage into our centers, the only way we can make people feel what we feel

Eloise thought that justice was a funny thing. It was a big idea, a romantic one. It was imagined like a satisfying end to a story.

Anger, disappointment, sadness were the all-too-familiar horsemen preceding any encounter with her family.

It is not the strongest among us who survive. Nor is it the most intelligent. It is those among us who are the most adaptable to change.

Think of it as a little vacation your psyche takes when it has too much to handle. It's like a brownout, an overloading of circuits. Grief is a neurological event.

No one ever talks about issues like dissociative identity disorder, fugue, or psychotic breaks in anything but the most negative light. No one ever talks about how the personality does this type of thing to protect itself, to save itself, or how powerful and effective it is." I

It's never one thing that leads to a tragic accident, she was sure she'd read once—though she couldn't say where. It's usually seven things—seven mistakes, or errors in judgment, or acts of negligence. If you reverse engineer any major disaster—oil spill or train derailment or airplane crash—there are usually seven things that had to go wrong in order for them to occur.

Houses are like people. They have memories, and energy. They wait. They wilt from neglect. They sicken and decay. They haunt, and they are haunted. This house was a too big, rambling old place, populated by restless ghosts and bad memories. It seemed to rise out of the trees as we grew closer.

Sarah's death and how it haunted you, how you were swallowed by your guilt. But your mother was at least partially responsible for how you handled that situation as well. Let's not forget that you were just a kid. With the right guidance, you might have come through that incident better." Jones

She understood now, how you turned away until you couldn't. Until the pain of knowing and doing nothing was greater than the fear of what might come next.