Love. I would ban the word from the vocabulary. Such imprecision. Love, which love, what love? Sentiment, fantasy, longing, lust? Obsession, devouring need? Perhaps the only love that is accurate without qualification is the love of a very young child. Afterward, she too becomes a person, and thus compromised.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 301

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What was a weed, anyway. A plant nobody planted? A seed escaped from a traveler’s coat, something that didn’t belong? Was it something that grew better than what should have been there? Wasn’t it just a word, weed, trailing it’s judgments. Useless, without value. Unwanted.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 288

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Just because a poet said something didn’t mean it was true, only that it sounded good.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 254

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The Romans were right. One can bear anything. The pain we cannot bear will kill us outright.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 247-248

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Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 223

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That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific — chair, eye, stone — but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn’t include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 221

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Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 220

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She should have realized I was a bad luck person, she should never have thought I was someone to count on.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 218

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He just didn’t want to see how damaged she was. As long as she didn’t show him, that was all he asked for. A good show.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 209

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She joked about her fears, but it was the kind of joke where you knew people thought it was ridiculous, and you pretended you thought so too, but underneath you were completely serious.

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander, page 166

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ebook, 345 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company