Amy Hatvany > Quotes

“being a good mother does not mean being perfect every single moment. we screw up. we get mad, we drink too much, eat too much, yell too much. a good mother learns from her mistakes and does what she can to not let them happen over and over.”
― Amy Hatvany

“What other people think of you is none of your business," she says. "You can't change it, you can't control it. The only thing you can control is your reaction to it.”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“Humiliation is about shame. Becoming humble is about being of use to others. It helps you get off the self-pity pot and stop wallowing around in your own crap.”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“A man doesn't have to be evil in order to sexually assault women,” Vanessa said. “Most rapists don't look like what we're programmed to believe they should – they're not greasy-haired monsters who jump out from behind the bushes and tie up their victims in their basements. More often, they're someone's typical father, husband, brother, or son – but what they do to women is monstrous.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“The world is full of seemingly nice guys who assault women. Guys who don't have healthy attitudes about women and sex in general, who see sex as something they are entitled to, who hurt women and don't even know they are doing it because we don't educate our young men on how not to become rapists.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I spent my whole life just killing time- waiting and waiting-waiting for something to change, even though I had absolutely no idea what that might be. I waited for the day to end. I waited in fear for the next day to begin. I waited and waited and waited and lied to myself that magically it would be all right.”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“There are some wounds unreachable by words, some sins immune to apology.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“No one told me that the love I'd feel for my child would be so pervasive and consuming.”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“Cancer is tangible. People feel compassion for you if you get cancer. Not so much if you're an alcoholic. And a mother who drinks? Forget it. Straight to hell. Big fat scarlet letter branded on our foreheads for life. Me and Hester Prynne? Same letter, different sins.”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“Holding on to resentments is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.”
― Amy Hatvany

“It's just drinks,” Heather said, lifting the second cocktail up and smiling at the men, too. “It doesn't mean anything else.”
I nodded, but I didn't know how to tell her how wrong she was. That it's possible for a man to interpret a woman's initial permission as license to steamroll over any boundary she might set after that. That once a woman says yes, it's possible a man might not give a shit when she changes her mind. He might tear off her clothes; he might bruise her body and send splinters of blistering fear into her soul. He might do this even if he's someone she knows, someone she loves and trusts. And then she might end up in a bar with a fake smile plastered on her face, trying to act like none of it mattered, trying to believe, despite the agony deep down inside her bones, that she's over what he did, desperate to pretend she's safe.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“Our society always seems to blame the victim not the perpetrator, for a sexual crime. It says a woman shouldn't dress provocatively or drink alcohol or have any kind of flirtation or interaction with a man because that means she is asking for him to do whatever he wants to do to her, even after she tells him no.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“Maybe he was too drunk to hear me when I told him to stop. Maybe I didn’t say it loudly enough. Maybe I didn’t say it enough times.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I felt numb, I felt empty. I was a shell, an abandoned chrysalis, a tomb lying in wait for the dead”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“The girl I’d been just an hour ago was gone; she’d been obliterated. I had no idea who I was, now.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I nodded, but I didn't know how to tell her how wrong she was. That it's possible for a man to interpret a woman's initial permission as license to steamroll any boundary she may set after that. That once a woman says yes, it's possible a man might not give a shit when she changes her mind.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“Well, you know what procrastination and masturbation have in common, don’t you?” She waits a beat, then answers her own question. “When it comes right down to it, you only end up screwing yourself.”
― Amy Hatvany, Best Kept Secret

“After watching so many of the other women find satisfaction-joy, even-in activities like these, I sometimes wondered what was wrong with me that I only found more excuses not to join them. I felt like I did back in high school, not wanting to be a cheerleader or head up the homecoming committee-I didn't have a bubbly personality and didn't care about the theme of a prom”
― Amy Hatvany (Yurk), Best Kept Secret

“I think under the right set of circumstances,” Mason said, carefully, his eyes not leaving mine, “pretty much anyone is capable of horrific behavior.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“I want to rewind the clock, take back the night when the world shattered. I want to erase everything that went wrong.”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“No, I thought. No way. I love her too much. I would never do that. And then again, those two words, her voice, exploding inside my head: “Tyler, wait!”
― Amy Hatvany, It Happens All the Time

“to meet, despite the time, the place, and despite the circumstances.”
― Amy Hatvany, Safe with Me

“i stand up and open the cupboards, cruising for something-anything- to eat. there's nothing- only a stale loaf of bread in my refrigerator and a single slice of moldy cheese. i've been living off coffee and takeout. i decide to go shopping and use up the hours and minutes that torture me with their lack of direction. i used to have a compass. i used to have charlie.”
― Amy Hatvany, Best Kept Secret

“thoroughly away. Ruth told Thomas this was normal teenage rebellion, that as long as she was coming home at all, they should be grateful. “It could be worse,” she said. “Much worse.”
― Amy Hatvany, Heart Like Mine