James Frey Quotes

″[Mother] reared back to slap me. I saw it coming, so when she swung I grabbed her hand […] She couldn’t hit me because I had her arms, so she tried to kick me. As she did, I let go of her hands and she lost her balance and fell to the floor and she started crying, crying really hard.”

“You should be concentrating on what you’re here for, which is getting sober and rebuilding your life. Lilly is a distraction that takes you away from that.”

“Parents don’t leave Children alone, James, they raise them.”

“I see the damage and pain of hard years. I see the emptiness and desperation of existence without hope. I see a young life that has been too long.”

“You have very low self-esteem. You’re confrontational and tend to be aggressive, you sometimes react to confrontation with violence.”

“I stare at the floor and I wonder. How did they tolerate me.”

“This is my Brother, my Blood, the only thing in this World created from that which I was created from, the Person in this World who knows me best, the Person who would miss me most if I was gone.”

“I’ve read the Bible. It didn’t ring true to me.”

“They ring true and that is all that matters the truth.”

“Life is hard, Kid, you gotta be harder […] There is an anger and there is a hardness and there is a resolve.”

“Our jobs here, as stupid and menial as they may be, allow us to pretend that we are, if even for just a few minutes a day, just like other people”

“Whether they will admit it or not, all men love fighting.”

“Except for the God part, it sounds fine.”

“He just screamed and screamed and all that time we didn’t know that he was screaming because he hurt.”

“I scream. I see a bed. I grab the end of the bed and I lift it and I flip it and the mattress goes and I grab the simple metal frame and I lift it and I throw it down with everything everything everything and it snaps but it’s not enough so I stomp it stomp it stomp it and it snaps again again again and there are only broken bars and bolts and screws and I’m screaming and it feels good and I’m just getting started.”

“I breathe and I shake and I can feel it coming and rage and need and confusion regret horror shame and hatred fuse into a perfect Fury a great and beautiful and terrible and perfect Fury the Fury and I can’t stop the Fury or control the Fury I can only let the Fury come come come come come.”

“We were a Family, a happy Family, and we stayed that way until I stopped showing up.”

“Shame is a terrible thing. Necessary, but terrible.”

“I change into the clothes he brought me. A pair of khakis, a white T-shirt, some slippers. They’re warm and soft and they feel good. I almost feel human.”

“My front four teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my eyes are swollen nearly shut.”