{"author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt","total_quotes":30,"quotes":[{"text":"People didn’t know everything then. There were things people had never seen before. Places nobody had ever been. You could make up a story and people would believe it...Also maybe it seems like it would be okay not to be perfect. Nobody was perfect back then. Just about everyone was defective, and most people had no choice except to stay that way.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["life","past","perfect","story"],"id":509,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"When people mentioned it to me, they thought they were talking about some casual relative of mine. For most people that's what an uncle was. They had no idea how I felt about Finn. No idea that hearing them talk about AIDS, like that was the important part of the story--more important than who Finn was, or how much I loved him, or how much he was still breaking my heart every single hour of every single day--made me want to scream.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["grief"],"id":9632,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"That's the secret. If you always make sure you're exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won't care if you die tomorrow.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["death-and-dying"],"id":20262,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"It's the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven't done everything they want to do. They think they haven't had enough time. They feel they've been shortchanged.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["life-and-living","time-passing"],"id":30895,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"...I felt the wall between the world of secrets and the real world start to collapse. I felt the girls from the portrait becoming us and us becoming them...","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["healing","hope","siblings"],"id":40264,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"But they gave me Finn. He said it like maybe it was worth the trade. Like it was something he would do again if he had the choice. Like he would take a man's legs and give away years of his own freedom if it was the only way. I thought how that was wrong and terrible and beautiful all at the same time.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["love","sacrifice"],"id":48333,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"…there’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special, even though you know you’re not.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["beautiful","june-elbus","snow","special","tell-the-wolves-i-m-home","walking-on-snow"],"id":53904,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["friendship","lonliness","loss","love","relationships"],"id":61433,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"I like the word clandestine. It feels medieval. Sometimes I think of words as being alive. If clandestine were alive, it would be a pale little girl with hair the color of fall leaves and a dress as white as the moon.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["words"],"id":154060,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"},{"text":"My mother gave me a disappointed look. Then I gave her one back. Mine was for everything, not just the sandwich.","author":"Carol Rifka Brunt","tags":["disappointment"],"id":154640,"author_id":"Carol+Rifka+Brunt"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":30,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}