01c. 1972 ADOnce I was in the cold dim room, without furniture or carpet or rugs, only a dollhouse that wasn't as wonderful as the original, I opened the tall and narrow closet door and began my ascent up the steep and narrow stairs. On my way to the attic.On my way to where I'd find my Christopher, again...V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
02c. 1972 ADI had heard the wind from the mountains calling me last night, telling me it was my time to go, and I woke up, knowing what to do.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
03c. 1972 ADI was the last of the four Dresden dolls. Only me... and I didn't want to be here.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
04c. 1972 ADThe sun was hot and bright. A day for fishing, for swimming, for playing tennis and having fun, and they put my Christopher in the ground.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
06c. 1972 ADAnd grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away, and the person so real, so beloved, becomes a dim, slightly out-of-focus shadow.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
07c. 1972 ADWas I prone to sadness and melancholy? How could anyone like that? It wasn't that I wanted it; it was that I was so used to hard rains, I couldn't help expecting a cloudburst every time something nice happened and sunshine beamed down over me.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
09c. 1972 ADWe're better off not worrying about ourselves, and to do that, we have to worry about others.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
10c. 1972 ADI used to have this toy, a magic slate. You wrote or drew on it and then, just by pulling up the plastic cover, everything you did disappeared and you could start new. Maybe everyone feels that on New Year's Eve: They can pull up the magic sheet and rewrite their lives.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
11c. 1972 ADYes, I am a prisoner of sorts, but my prison isn't the house. It's my own thoughts that lock me up!V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
12c. 1972 ADWe're going to change. We're going to throw out what's worse in usand keep what's best. But come hell or high water, we three will sticktogether, all for one, one for all. We're going to grow, Cathy,physically, mentally, and emotionally. Not only that, we're going toreach the goals we've set for ourselves. I'll be the best damneddoctor the world's ever known and you will make Pavlova seem like anawkward country girl.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
13c. 1972 ADAll pain seemed to come with lots of blood, and lots of mental anguish, too. I already knew about that. Maybe that was the worst kind of pain, because nobody knew about it but you.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
14c. 1972 ADThen the wind came in with Bart and blew the vase of roses from the table. I stood and stared down at the crystal pieces and the petals scattered about. Why was the wind always trying to tell me something? Something I didn't want to hear!V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
15c. 1972 ADCathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us downagain.Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we aredoomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of findingperfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won'tbe disappointed."If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. Butafter all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted amountain high! A hill wasn't enough. From this day forward, I vowedto myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, notGod, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, ordominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, totake what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I'dbeen kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I'd been betrayed,deceived, tied to, used, poisoned ... but all that was over now.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
16c. 1972 ADFrom this day forward, I vowedto myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, notGod, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, ordominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, totake what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
17c. 1972 ADIn the dark, the little live Christmas tree, two feet tall, sparkled with tiny coloured lights, like the tears I saw glistening in my brother's eyes.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
18c. 1972 ADA Colder breeze lifted a dead leaf to the roof and sent it scuttling merrily on its way to catch in my hair. It crackled dry and brittle when Chris plucked it out and held it, just staring down at a dead maple leaf as if his very life depended on reading its secret for knowing how to blow in the wind. No arms, no legs, no wings... bit it could fly when dead.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
19c. 1972 ADYou are an intriguing combination, half child, half seductress, half angel."I laughed sort and bitterly. "That's what all men like to think about women. Little girls they have to take care of--when I know for a fact it is the male who is more boy than man.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
20c. 1972 ADOr was Chris thinking, as I was, that if we went tothe police and told our story, our faces would be splashed on the frontpages of every newspaper in the country? Would the glare of publicitymake up for what we'd lose? Our privacy-our need to stay together?Could we lose each other just to get even?V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
22c. 1972 ADThe Bible said, as Chris quoted one memorable day, there was a time foreverything. I figured my time for happiness was just ahead, waitingfor me.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
23c. 1972 ADLove is fragile at best and often a burden or something that blinds us. It's fodder for poets and song writers and they build it into something beyond human capacity. Falling in love means enrolling yourself in the school of disappointment. Being human means failing each other often, and no two people fail each other more than two people who pledge to do things for each other that they'll never do because they are just incapable of it...That's why art is enduring. The look of love or hope, or the look of compassion, bravery, whatever, is captured forever. We spend our lives trying to get someone to be as enduring as a painting or a sculpture and we can't because feelings crumble as quickly as the flesh.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
24c. 1972 ADYou know what I miss the most about my youth? My gullibility. It's nice believing in everything and everyone. It makes you feel secure, but be strong and depend more on yourself and you'll be ready for disappointments. That's the best advice I can offer you.V.C. Andrews / quote ↗
