Jennifer Banash > Quotes

“I'm sorry,' I say for what feels like the millionth time. I know, even as my mouth forms the words, that I will say them for the rest of my life. Forever. That there will never be a time when I am not, in some small way, apologizing for the damage my brother has wrought.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“Luke is dead too, like Katie, I know, but this makes no difference. My grief will always be less important.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“It feels like I died with Luke, alongside all of those kids who looked up from gossiping in the quad, from the useless pages of their books in the library, to meet the barrel of my brother's gun, his face filled with hate. In a way, I died the moment Luke walked into that library, the moment we came face-to-face. Now I'm trapped in the land of the dead, a barren landscape, shards of bone cutting my feet, their voices a soft chatter, telling me to follow.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“I don't know why I'm suddenly so angry, but I am. With Delilah, with Luke, with Ben, with myself for letting all of this happen in the first place, for not noticing something was wrong before it was way, way too late.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“As I approached the red awning of the Cornelia Street Café,”
― Jennifer Banash, The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcana

“He pronounces my name Alice, not A-lise, the way it’s meant to be said, and for the millionth time I wonder why my parents gave Luke such a simple name—easy to say, easy to spell—but decided to bestow upon me one that pretty much guarantees that I’ll be correcting people in a mild but constant state of irritation for my entire life.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“There was comfort in words, in the solidity of them.”
― Jennifer Banash, The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcana

“The choir box is empty this morning, and I long for some kind of melody, the crash of the organ, the flight of angelic voices. My fingers twitch against the fabric of my dress and I close my eyes, remembering the Debussy, the Brahms lullaby I played each night before bed, my face pressed to the pad beneath my chin, arms cutting the air around me. The fact that Luke doesn't deserve music, the blissful lilt and salvation of it, make me, for some reason, saddest of all.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“My father is at the door before I can get to it. It could be the reporters, still, but at nine p.m. it's a little late - even for them. He stands there, one finger pressed to his lips, his normally neatly combed dark hair standing on end, the temples graying more than I remember, still wearing the same bathrobe he sported this morning. His expression is frozen, that glazed-over look I'm sure is pasted all over my own face, what we are wearing these days instead of actual feelings.”
― Jennifer Banash, Silent Alarm

“I could feel the limitations of words as I struggled to find my own, how unless they were written down on paper, you were never sure they’d come out exactly right. I could rewrite an article over and over, moving slowly toward a kind of perfection—or at the very least, completion—but talking felt like diving headfirst onto a minefield.”
― Jennifer Banash, The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcana