Little Fires Everywhere was a quick read that held me captive all the way through. Celeste Ng is a genius when it comes to making us uncomfortable in our own skin. This novel was pretty straightforward, but there were enough quotes on life lessons to warrant their own post.
You can read my review of Little Fires Everywhere here.
Quotes on Life Lessons
“Izzy had the heart of a radical, but she had the experience of a fourteen-year-old living in the suburban Midwest. Which was to say: she cast about for ideas for exacting revenge—egged windows, flaming bags of dog shit—and chose the best thing in her limited repertoire.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“A sweet face. A young face, but not an innocent face. She didn’t care, Mrs. Richardson realized, what people thought of her. In a way, that made her dangerous.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
I think the following quote is a life lesson in becoming numb and inactive because of fear in the name of practicality. It’s very appropriate for our current times. Are these the things that are holding us back from creating change in our world? Check out this important quote on life lessons.
“A lifetime of practical and comfortable considerations settled atop the spark inside her like a thick, heavy blanket. If she ran off to Washington to join the protests, where would she sleep? How would she stay safe? What would become of her classes, would she be expelled, could she still graduate and go to college?” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“He felt as if he’d dived into a deep, clear lake and discovered it was a shallow, knee-deep pond. What did you do? Well, you stood up. You rinsed your mud-caked knees and pulled your feet out of the muck. And you were more cautious after that. You knew, from then on, that the world was a smaller place than you’d expected.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Quotes on Motherhood
“She had learned, with Izzy’s birth, how your life could trundle along on its safe little track and then, with no warning, skid spectacularly off course.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“Now, as a teenager, Pearl’s caresses had become rare—a peck on the cheek, a one-armed, half-hearted hug—and all the more precious because of that. It was the way of things, Mia thought to herself, but how hard it was. The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“Mia held her for a moment, buried her nose in the part of Pearl’s hair. Every time she did this, she was comforted by how Pearl smelled exactly the same. She smelled, Mia thought suddenly, of home, as if home had never been a place, but had always been this little person whom she’d carried alongside her.” — Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Celeste Ng is a master of writing about life in a real and raw way we can all relate to in some way. I hope you enjoyed these quotes on life lessons and motherhood.
Have you read Little Fires Everywhere? Let me know in the comments if you liked it or if you’re planning to read it! And if you need some help deciding, here’s the link to my review again. 😉
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