Dylan Dawson Quotes

“Words are like people, I think. Put too many of them too close together and they cause trouble.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I got words in me, Jess, fighting to find a way out. Sometimes there's so many words and they get so crowded in my skull I think my head is gonna explode. I want to write them down. I've tried, but most of the time my thoughts and my feelings are bigger than what I can get on paper.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Those who have witnessed executions say there is no sound worse than the weeping of mother watching her son being put to death.

They're wrong. There is one sound that is worse.

There is silence.”
― carolee dean, Take Me There

“This is what love is. Not the moments on the beach, or under the stars or the trees, or in the moonlight. Love is sitting together in the quiet, waiting for death to come.
Knowing you’re not alone.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“How do you know where a story begins?”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I was
holding her
and she was
holding me.
Couldn’t see
we both were
going down.
When holding on
is the only thing
you’ve got,
how can you know
this is how lovers drown?”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“This is the house where they found Jack dead.
This is the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the floor
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the wall, splattered in red,
standing next to the floor,
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the door leading into the tomb.
This is the wall splattered in red,
standing next to the floor
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the clock hanging over the door.
This is the wall splattered in red
standing next to the floor
in the room
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the bird coming out of the clock
hanging over the door
in the wall
by the floor
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the song in the heart of the bird
coming out of the clock
hanging over the door
in the wall
by the floor
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
These are the words
to the song of the bird
coming out of the clock
hanging over the door
in the wall
by the floor
in the room
of the house
where they found Jack dead.
This is the man who sits in the cell.
Eleven years have come and gone.
Jack is dead, but he lives on.
He waits in silence, but he still can hear.
The ancient song echoes in his ears.
The sound of time with its tick tick TOCK!
The song of the bird coming out of the clock,
hanging over a door leading into a tomb,
where there stand four walls splattered all in red,
and a floor where a good man fell and bled,
in the room of the house where they found Jack dead.
These are the words of the cuckoo’s song,
as he asks us who will right these wrongs.
The cuckoo sings and the cuckoo wails,
for the dead who cannot tell their tales.
Rage all you want, but at close of day,
justice is mine, and I will repay.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“We sit in silence, all the unanswered and unasked questions thicker than the wall of glass between us.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I won’t offer you a tired admonition to avoid my path. I won’t advise you to stay on the straight and narrow. I won’t suggest that you make good choices. I won’t even tell you to do the right thing. You can get that kind of advice from teachers and parents and TV evangelists, and if you are like me, you wouldn’t listen anyway.
I just make one suggestion.
Know what path you’re on.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I have loved and been loved, thoroughly and deeply by good and decent people who believed in me. Who let me dare to believe in myself.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“We are all rotting, making our way from womb to tomb, to the rhythm of the great clock counting downward to the grave.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Stop jacking with me, Dad. All I ever wanted was the truth.”
“That’s the problem. People think if they can add up all the facts, they’ll end up with the truth, but that’s like sewin’ body parts together in the hopes you’ll get a man.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“But thinkin’ you owe people is dangerous business.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“So quit asking everybody else questions, unless you’re ready to answer some questions yourself.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“It is hard to believe that a place this small can hold so much hate, and I have the terrible feeling I’ve only just seen the surface.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Is she worth all that pain?” he asked me, smiling.
“Definitely,” I said, still reeling from the events of the day.
“But I don’t deserve her.”
“Then be somebody who does.”
“That’s what I intend to do.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I used to think that words and music could change the world, but look at the people who have made it. You see their faces all over the tabloids talking about their latest stint in rehab”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“So don’t ask no questions. Too much truth can be bad.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“To my son Dylan.
I’ve written this book for you.
It’s a guide for how not to live your life.
I’m sending it out into the world in the hopes
that someday it will find you.
Even if I never do.
All my love,
Dad”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“What happened?”
“I tried to be somebody different from who I am and it didn’t work out.”
“The world ain’t set up that way. Folks say we oughta be better than we are, but deep down they just want us to stay in our places. With our own kind.
Messes up the natural order, otherwise.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Did you know that seventy-five to eighty percent of juvenile offenders can’t read at grade level?”
“Really?” This was news to me.
“Your world becomes a much smaller place if you can’t read. You have far fewer options. It’s not the only factor, but it’s a big one. If they want to know how big to build a prison,
all they have to do is look at the illiteracy statistics.”
“They knew I was coming.”
“You or someone like you.”
“You knew it too, all those years ago, back in Quincy. That’s why you tried to help me. Because you knew I was coming here.”
“Here or someplace like here.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I have a class in Hermosa Beach that starts at eight, but …”
I wanted to offer to pick up her car, drive her back to Hermosa Beach, take her to the moon.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Dude, there should be a law against people singing that bad.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Where we goin’?” Wade whispers to me as we approach the white picket fence that surrounds the row of wooden crosses.
For all I know my grandmother could be planning to shoot us and bury us with the rest of the family, but I don’t think it would help to share this notion with Wade”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“When I get to the part about Jess kissing me on the Fourth of July and taking me to her beach house,I look at my father and wonder what it is like, seeing people only through a wall of glass. Never touching them.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Hey, aren’t you that guy who fixes cars?” Katie asked,
looking at my grease-covered work pants as if she couldn’t believe I ever left the garage.
“Yeah, they let me out every now and then,” I said.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“As soon as I left one town, I was in another, each one a totally different world, as if an invisible box surrounded its edges, keeping everybody in their proper place.
The rich stayed rich. The poor stayed poor. The troublemakers stayed in trouble.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“I was taking a nap in the theater one day while I ditched English, when I looked up and saw Jess on the stage. I had to pinch myself, because I figured either I was dreaming or else I’d died and gone to heaven—which given my history was probably not where I’d end up.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“It brings back a long-forgotten memory of Christmas, the year I turned six. I was supposed to be in bed, but I was up waiting and watching for my father or Santa Claus, whoever came first.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There

“Testimony to her belief that life could be managed if things were only kept in their proper places.”
― Carolee Dean, Take Me There